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EAST  BY   WEST 

ESSAYS     IN     TRANSPORTATION 

A  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  POLITICAL 
FRAMEWORK  WITHIN  WHICH  THE  EAST 
INDIA  TRADE  HAS  BEEN  CARRIED  ON  FROM 
EARLY  TIMES,  STARTING  WITH  BABYLON 
AND      ENDING      VERY      NEAR      BABYLON 


BY 

A.  J.   MORRISON 


Boston 
The  Four  Seas  Company 
1920 


Copyright,  1^20,  by 
The  Four  Seas  Company 


The    Four    Seas    Press 
Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


SRLB 
URL 


^Cl3t>5'g^l 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The  Encyclopaedia's  a  weighty  book; 

Smith's  row  of  dictionaries  took 

Me  long  to  read  at  and  digest 

(If  so)   from  East  back  East  by  West: 

These,  with  a  history  or  two, — 

Say,  Finlay,  Grote, —  commend  to  you 

I  of  my  stays  most  warmly  do. 

Noia:      Should  mention  Robertson, 

His  India,  for  'twas  Robertson 
Set  me  about  the  task  here  done: 
And  Bancroft  of  the  Western  Coast, 
And  others  pointed  as  they  almost: 
Starting  with  Babylon,  long  time  ago, 
And  ending  where  —  none  seems  to  know. 


Quo  dura  vocat  fortuna. 


CONTENTS 

PART    I  PAGE 

The  Old  East  of  Babylonia    ...  1 

The  Old  Phcenicia 6 

Miletus  and    Coeinth 11 

Syracuse  and  the  Italic  Geeeks  .      .  16 

Period  of  the  Persian  Control     .      .  19 

The  Macedonian  Philip      ....  23 

Alexander  the  Great 25 

Sicily  and  Africa 29 

Egypt,    Alexandria,    and   Asia    Minor  34 

Rome  vs.  Carthage  and  Corinth   .      .  38 

Rome  to  Augustus 41 

The  Roman  Empire 43 

Hadrian    Emperor 53 

constantine  and  his  capital  ...  56 

From  Constantine  to  Heraclius   .      .  62 

The  West  and  the  East    ....  64 

Leo  the  Iconoclast 68 

The  New  West 71 

The  Coming  of  Venice 74 

Normans    in    the    Eastern    Mediter- 
ranean       78 

Commerce  and  the  Crusades    ...  80 
Venice    and    the    Belgians    and    Con- 
stantinople           83 

Bruges    of    the   West    .....  86 

Genoa 88 

The  Ottoman  Turk 92 

Venice  from  1453 96 


PART  II 

PAGE 

Portugal    Discovers    the    East  .      .  103 

Elimination  of  the  Portuguese    .      .  108 

The  House  op  Habsburg    ....  112 

The   Dutch 114 

The  English  —  East  and  West    .      .  118 

Iberia  in  the  West 121 

ACAPULCO    AND    THE    MaNILA    ShIP     .         .  125 

The  Darien  Company  of  Scots  .      ,      .  128 
British  America  and  British  India       .  132 
Apprenticeship  of  the  British  Amer- 
icans    134 

The  American  Revolution  ....  137 

Boston     in     the    East 140 

Salem,  Boston,  and  Other  Ports  .       .  142 

1815  AND  THE  China  Trade  ....  149 

From  Mecca  to  Santa  Fe     .      .      .      .  152 

Oregon     and     California    ....  154 

The  American  Eagle  — 1846   .       .       .  157 

California  and  the  Merchant  Marine  160 

The  Union  Pacific 162 

The  Twins  —  Suez  Canal  and  U.  P.  R. 

R 167 

A  Few  Effects  of  the  Suez  Canal     .  170 

The    Bagdad    Railway 172 

The  Great  Transportation  War  .      ,  175 


EAST  BY  WEST 
PART  I 


EAST  BY  WEST 

THE  OLD  EAST  OF  BABYLONIA 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh  said,  "  We  must  go  a 
long  way  back  to  find  the  Romans  giving  laws 
to  nations,  and  their  Consuls  bringing  kings 
and  princes  bound  in  chains  to  Rome;  to  see 
men  go  to  Greece  for  wisdom,  or  Ophir  for  gold, 
when  now  nothing  remains  but  a  poor  paper 
remembrance  of  their  former  condition."  We 
must  go  even  farther  back  to  the  time  when 
the  Mediterranean  was  becoming  the  nursery  of 
our  modern  western  civilization;  when  the 
Etruscans  were  active  in  Italy,  the  Turduli 
and  Turdetani  in  Spain,  whose  books  two  thou- 
sand years  ago  were  allowed  an  antiquity  of 
six  thousand  years.  Egypt  had  seen  greater 
centuries  before  Psammetichus,  and  Psammeti- 
chus  ruled  a  century  before  the  Tarquins  were 
expelled.  The  planting  of  Tartessus,  of  Gades, 
where  a  temple  was  dedicated  to  the  wander- 
ing divinity  Melkarth,  son  of  Baal ;  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  colonial  city  Utica,  older 
than  Carthage,  remind  us  that  the  Phoenicians 
had  already  marked  the  limits  of  the  Mediter- 


2  EAST  BY  WEST 

ranean  long  before  the  Greeks  knew  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules,  or  even  Sicily. 

The  Argonauts,  we  suppose,  sought  the 
Golden  Fleece  in  Colchis,  which  being  inter- 
preted has  been  read  as  signifying  that  Greeks 
of  Thessaly  were  early  in  the  Black  Sea  for  the 
Indian  trade.  And  the  Indian  trade  led  any- 
where to  the  East,  by  Babylon,  by  Barygaza, 
the  Malabar  Coast,  Ceylon  or  Taprobane,  and 
as  far  as  Serica,  the  silk  country,  which  we  call 
China  now.  Babylon,  formed  by  position  for 
a  seat  of  empire  and  commerce  (we  note  to-day 
a  Bagdad  railway),  even  in  the  time  of  Ham- 
murabi must  have  been  a  meeting  place  of  East 
and  West  for  trade.  That  age,  the  twentieth 
century  before  Christ,  was  one  of  great  changes 
in  the  world,  by  which  Western  Asia  was  as- 
sured a  Semitic  predominance  to  be  the  shaper 
of  near  Eastern  civilization  until  the  Mediter- 
ranean stocks  were  nurtured. — "  You  only 
have  I  known  of  all  the  families  of  the  earth, 
and  I  will  visit  all  your  iniquities  upon  you  " — 
as  of  Israel,  so  of  Babylon,  skilled  in  the  manu- 
facture of  linen  and  cotton,  of  all  kinds  of  ap- 
parel, of  innumerable  articles  of  luxury,  such 
as  sweet  waters,  walking  sticks,  engraven 
stones,  and  importing  the  precious  stones  of 
India,  Indian  dogs,  Indian  dyes,  the  gold  and 
gold  dust  of  the  deserts  where  the  griffins 
watched  in  Gobi. 


EAST  BY  WEST  3 

Before  the  Persians  had  interrupted  the 
navigation  up  the  rivers  from  the  Persian  Gulf, 
there  were  two  main  channels  of  the  import 
trade  to  Babylon,  one  by  water  and  the  other 
by  caravan.  In  the  old  flourishing  days  of 
the  river  trade  to  Babylon,  the  inhabitants  of 
Gerrha  in  East  Arabia  were  one  of  the  richest 
peoples  of  the  world,  and  for  this  they  were 
indebted  to  their  traffic  in  Arabian  and  In- 
dian commodities,  which  they  transported  into 
the  West  by  caravan  and  to  Babylon  by  their 
ships.  For  although  the  Gerrha  men  dwelt  in 
a  barren  district,  (but  a  salt  country,  and 
thence  a  part  of  their  fortunes,  as  with  the 
Venetians),  yet  they  were  near  to  Arabia  Felix, 
the  native  region  of  frankincense  and  other 
perfumes,  which  the  Babylonians  consumed  in 
quantity:  Herodotus  mentioning  that  annually 
the  Chaldjeans  put  to  use  a  thousand  talents 
of  frankincense  in  the  temple  of  Bel.  All  this 
valued  freight  was  conveyed  to  Babylon  in  such 
abundance  that  a  great  overplus,  after  the 
capital  was  supplied,  was  carried  up  the  Eu- 
phrates to  Thapsacus,  close  in  to  the  Medi- 
terranean, and  from  Thapsacus  over  much  of 
far  western  Asia.  The  merchants  of  Gerrha 
also  sent  their  ships  above  Babylon  to  Opis 
on  the  Tigris,  and  from  Opis  caravans  went  out 
to  the  interior  of  Asia.  The  Gerrha  men,  with 
little   to   start  upon,   became  handlers   in   the 


4  EAST  BY  WEST 

large  —  products  of  Arabia  and  East  Africa, 
cinnamon  of  Ceylon,  Persian  and  Indian  pearls. 
Babylon  was  their  chief  market,  Babylon  the 
magnificent.  Herodotus  saw  the  place  in  his 
mind's  eye  at  least. 

"  Assyria,"  he  wrote,  "  possesses  a  vast  num- 
ber of  great  cities,  whereof  the  most  renowned 
and  powerful,  Babylon,  whither  after  the  fall 
of  Nineveh  the  seat  of  government  had  been 
removed.  The  city  stands  on  a  broad  plain, 
and  is  in  form  an  exact  square.  In  magnifi- 
cence there  is  no  other  city  that  approaches 
it.  The  city  is  surrounded  by  a  broad  and 
deep  moat,  full  of  water,  behind  which  rises  a 
wall  fifty  royal  cubits  in  width  and  two  hun- 
dred in  height.  On  the  top,  along  the  edges 
of  the  wall,  the  makers  constructed  buildings  of 
a  single  chamber,  facing  one  another,  leaving 
between  them  room  for  a  four-horse  chariot  to 
turn.  In  the  circuit  of  the  wall  are  a  hundred 
gates,  all  of  brass,  with  brazen  lintels  and  side 
posts. —  The  city  is  divided  into  two  portions 
by  the  Euphrates,  which  runs  through  the 
midst  of  it,  a  broad,  deep,  swift  stream.  The 
city  wall  is  brought  down  on  both  sides  to  the 
edge  of  the  stream;  thence,  from  the  corners 
of  the  wall,  there  is  carried  along  each  bank 
of  the  river  a  fence  of  burnt  bricks.  The 
houses  are  mostly  three  and  four  stories  high : 
the  streets  all  run  in  straight  lines,  not  only 


EAST  BY  WEST  6 

those  parallel  to  the  river  but  also  the  cross 
streets  which  lead  down  to  the  waterside.  At 
the  river  end  of  these  cross  streets  are  low 
gates  in  the  fence  that  skirts  the  stream,  which, 
like  the  great  gates  in  the  outer  wall,  are  of 
brass  and  open  on  the  water. —  In  Assyria  the 
river  does  not,  as  in  Egypt,  overflow  the  com 
lands  of  its  own  accord,  but  is  spread  over 
them  by  the  hand  or  by  the  help  of  engines. 
The  whole  of  Babylonia  is  intersected  by  ca- 
nals. Of  all  the  countries  that  we  know  there 
is  none  that  is  so  fruitful  in  grain. — "  The 
greatest  wonder  of  all,"  Herodotus  said,  "  that 
I  saw  in  the  land,  after  the  city  itself,  is  this : 
The  boats  which  come  down  the  river  to  Baby- 
lon are  circular,  and  made  of  skins.  The 
frames,  which  are  of  willow,  are  cut  in  the 
country  of  the  Armenians,  above  Assyria,  and 
on  these,  serving  for  hulls,  a  covering  of  skins 
is  stretched  outside,  and  thus  the  boats  are 
made,  without  either  stem  or  stem,  quite  round 
like  a  shield.  They  are  then  entirely  filled 
with  straw,  and  their  cargo  is  put  on  board, 
after  which  they  are  suffered  to  float  down  the 
stream.  Their  chief  freight  is  wine,  stored  in 
casks  made  of  the  wood  of  the  palm  tree. 
They  are  managed  by  two  men  who  stand  up- 
right in  them,  each  plying  an  oar,  one  pulling 
and  the  other  pushing.  The  boats  are  of  va- 
rious  sizes,  some  larger,   some  smaller.     Each 


6  EAST  BY  WEST 

vessel  has  a  live  ass  on  board,  those  of  larger 
size  have  more  than  one.  When  they  reach 
Babylon,  the  cargo  is  landed  and  offered  for 
sale :  after  which  the  men  break  up  their  boats, 
sell  the  straw  and  the  frames,  and  loading  their 
asses  with  the  skins  set  off  on  their  way  back  to 
Armenia.  The  current  is  too  strong  to  allow 
a  boat  to  return  up  stream,  for  which  reason 
they  make  their  boats  of  skin  rather  than  of 
wood.  On  their  return  to  Armenia,  they  build 
fresh  boats  for  the  next  voyage." 

THE  OLD  PHOENICIA 

That  Avas  the  near  East,  reckoning  from 
what  West  there  was.  In  the  West,  before  our 
alphabet  was,  we  may  fancy  the  Phoenicians 
on  their  beautiful  strip  of  coast  between  the 
Lebanon  and  the  sea.  There  was  a  genius  in 
Sidon,  a  faculty  for  making  the  most  of  the 
data  of  life  in  the  practical  way.  We  cannot 
trace  the  rise  of  Sidon  and  the  growth  of  Tyre: 
certainly  by  the  twelfth  century  before  our 
era  the  Phoenicians  were  a  sea  power,  and  en- 
gaged in  the  overland  trade.  They  had 
learned  how  to  work  a  ship,  and  how  to  man- 
age the  business  of  a  caravan.  For  five  hun- 
dred years  after  1200  the  Phoenicians  of  Phoe- 
nicia ranged  far  and  showed  themselves  very 
efficient.  The  Egyptians,  the  Assyrians,  the 
Persians,  the  Indians,  these  were  not  sea-far- 


EAST  BY  WEST  7 

ing  peoples,  and  the  products  of  India  and 
Arabia  must  be  distributed.  The  Idumsean 
Arabs,  dealing  towards  Petra  and  the  Red  Sea, 
and  the  Arabs  of  Gerrha  addressed  themselves 
to  the  problem  with  good  success.  The  Phoe- 
nicians were  more  enterprising  still.  They 
were  settled  on  the  Mediterranean,  knew  what 
Babylonia  and  Egypt  were,  and  looking  into 
the  West  were  led  on  to  discover  what  was  there 
as  well. 

The  merchants  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  —  equal 
to  princes  —  were  thoroughly  efficient.  They 
made  their  part  of  the  Mediterranean  shore  a 
warehouse  for  the  world,  where  everything  that 
might  administer  to  the  necessities  or  the  lux- 
ury of  mankind  was  to  be  found,  distributed 
as  occasion  best  offered.  The  glass  of  Sidon, 
the  purple  of  Tyre  were  the  product  of  their 
own  country  and  their  own  invention.  And 
for  their  extraordinary  skill  in  working  metals, 
in  hewing  timber  and  stone, —  in  a  word,  for 
their  perfect  knowledge  of  what  was  solid, 
great,  and  ornamental  in  architecture, —  the 
reader  need  only  be  put  in  mind  of  the  large 
share  they  had  in  erecting  and  adorning  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  under  their  King  Hiram. 
Their  fame  for  taste,  design,  and  ingenious  in- 
vention was  such  that  whatever  was  elegant  or 
pleasing,  whether  in  apparel,  vessels,  or  toys, 
came  to  be  distinguished  by  way  of  excellence 


8  EAST  BY  WEST 

with  the  epithet  Sidonian.  If  you  had  lived  in 
the  Mediterranean  at  the  time  Rome  was  found- 
ing, you  must  for  convenience  send  to  Tyre,  we 
will  say,  for  timber  of  Hermon,  cedar  of  Leb- 
anon, oak  of  Bashan,  ivory  of  the  Indies ;  fine 
linen  of  Egypt,  hyacinth  of  the  Peloponnessus, 
lead,  tin,  iron  and  vessels  of  brass;  slaves,  (ex- 
cellent market  for  slaves),  pearls,  precious 
stones  and  coral,  balm,  spices,  gums,  wool  and 
silk;  which  with  grain,  wine,  horses,  mules, 
sheep  and  goats,  and  many  other  articles  of 
trade  came  in  to  Tyre  by  land  and  sea  from 
Syria,  Arabia,  Damascus,  Greece,  Tarshish, 
and  other  places  difficult  to  fix. 

Who  put  together  our  alphabet?  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  we  will  say,  and  the  peoples  that  traded 
with  them,  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  signs 
and  symbols  found  practicable  in  doing  busi- 
ness. Read  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  who  says 
nothing  about  the  alphabet,  and  form  some  idea 
as  to  where  the  alphabet  came  from,  and  what 
was  the  price  paid  for  it. — "  These  were  thy 
merchants  in  all  sorts  of  things.  With  thy 
wisdom  and  with  thine  understanding  thou  hast 
gotten  thee  riches.  By  thy  great  wisdom  and 
by  thy  traffic  hast  thou  increased  thy  riches. 
Thou  hast  been  in  Eden,  the  garden  of  God; 
every  precious  stone  was  thy  covering.  By  the 
multitude  of  thy  merchandise  they  have  filled 


EAST  BY  WEST  9 

the  midst  of  thee  with  violence,  and  thou  hast 
sinned.  Thou  hast  defiled  thy  sanctuaries  by 
the  multitude  of  thine  iniquities,  by  the  iniquity 
of  thy  traffic.  Therefore  all  they  that  know 
thee  among  the  people  shall  be  astonished  at 
thee,  thou  shalt  be  a  terror,  and  never  shalt 
thou  be  any  more !  " —  These  assemblers  of 
our  alphabet  we  must  be  astonished  at.  Con- 
sider them  merely  as  directing  a  caravan  trade 
to  Gerrha,  or  by  Tadmor  to  Babylon,  or  by 
Petra  to  Yemen  of  South  Arabia ;  trafficking  to 
East  Africa ;  or  among  the  Greek  isles  for  wine, 
and  doing  a  great  wine  trade  to  Egypt;  send- 
ing out  their  ships  to  Cadiz,  (a  long  way  to 
Cadiz,  more  than  seventy-five  days  from  Tyre 
by  the  old  coasting  method),  and  although  in 
Spain  for  the  silver  there,  not  neglectful  of  the 
tin  of  Britain  and  the  amber  of  the  north ;  from 
Cadiz  establishing  factories  far  down  the  Afri- 
can West  Coast,  bartering  baubles  and  gew- 
gaws for  leopards'  skins,  elephants'  teeth,  and 
other  desired  articles.  Trade  was  brisk  dur- 
ing the  century  before  the  start  of  the  Persian 
Empire  (to  go  no  farther  back),  and  the 
merchants  of  Tyre  and  that  country  knew  how 
to  carry  it  on.  Ezekiel,  the  prophet,  is  good 
authority,  but  it  is  a  pity  (meaning  no  irrever- 
ence) we  have  not  some  record  in  detail  of  these 
transactions  preserved  by  the  merchants  them- 


10  EAST  BY  WEST 

selves,  the  honorable  of  the  earth:  a  bare  cal- 
endar of  certain  of  their  books  for  a  year  would 
make  interesting  reading  now. 

But  Ezekiel  had  spoken,  and  shortly  after- 
wards came  Nebuchadnezzar  in  the  year  585 
to  besiege  Tyre  for  thirteen  years ;  coming 
from  the  North  with  chariots  and  horsemen  and 
companies  and  much  people,  and  setting  en- 
gines of  war  against  the  walls.  Babylon 
planned  to  impose  itself  upon  the  world,  and 
Tyre  seemed  to  stand  in  the  way.  Conditions 
were  somewhat  thus : —  There  was  the  Mesopo- 
tamian  East ;  there  was  Egypt,  the  nearer 
East,  now  growing  modern  what  with  the  ad- 
mission of  foreigners ;  there  were  the  Greeks  of 
Europe  and  Asia,  greatly  active  but  not  a 
power  in  the  traditional  sense ;  and  there  was 
Tyre,  with  the  empire  of  much  of  the  sea,  and 
touching  all  the  world  one  way  or  another. 
What  of  these  forces  was  to  control  the  world 
during  the  next  following  centuries.''  Should 
it  be  Mesopotamia,  reclining  under  a  canopy 
and  beholding  the  industry  of  the  world  tribu- 
tary to  Babylon.''  It  could  hardly  be  Egypt: 
might  it  not  be  the  Greeks.''  for  Tyre  was  com- 
mercial, and  could  be  counted  upon  to  yield 
to  the  political  exigency.  A  century  or  two, 
(Mesopotamia  getting  another  chance  through 
the  Persian  and  the  Mede),  and  the  issue  would 
be  clear.     It  is  not  impossible  there  was  shrewd 


EAST  BY  WEST  11 

philosophy  at  Tyre  already,  balancing  the 
weight  of  the  Greeks.  For  Miletus  and 
Corinth  could  not  be  blinked.  Naucratis  in 
Egypt  was  a  fact  significant  at  least.  Syra- 
cuse and  Massilia  were  significant.  Had  not 
Phoenicia  been  once  fixed  commercially  in  the 
Black  Sea  and  the  ^gean?  Who  was  there 
now?  Time  and  strategy  might  bring  the 
world  around  to  a  political  supremacy  with 
its  seat  in  the  West.  We  may  read  good  poli- 
tics into  the  rise  of  Carthage,  New-town  in  Mid- 
Mediteranean :  — "  If  the  West  is  to  grow,  let 
us  grow  with  it." 

MILETUS  AND  CORINTH 

Certainly  Phoenicia  had  lost  in  the  North 
long  before  the  emergence  of  the  Empire  of  Per- 
sia. Since  whether  or  not  the  Northern  route 
to  the  East  was  of  extreme  importance  then, 
what  gain  accrued  from  it  fell  to  Miletus,  of 
all  Greek  cities  the  most  active  and  solid  for 
long  before  the  Persian  conquest  of  west- 
ern Asia.  The  Milesians  were  nimble  witted 
lonians.  They  were  perhaps  primarily  cloth 
merchants.  But  from  the  excellence  of  its  sit- 
uation and  the  convenience  of  its  four  harbors, 
one  of  them  capacious  enough  to  hold  a  fleet, 
the  town  Miletus  rose  to  be  the  preponderant 
city  among  the  lonians.  Indeed,  before  the 
year  500  Miletus  had  become  the  greatest  of 


12  EAST  BY  WEST 

Greek  cities.  Its  ships  sailed  to  every  part  of 
the  Mediterranean  and  even  to  the  Atlantic. 
But  the  Milesians  gave  their  attention  princi- 
pally to  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Northern  trade ; 
and  as  they  traded  they  colonized.  Like  the 
Genoese  a  thousand  years  after  them,  they 
knew  the  Crimea,  the  rivers  of  Russia,  and  all 
the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  And  like  Venice 
they  went  into  Egypt  and  had  their  self  gov- 
erning station  or  factory  of  Naucratis :  where 
Solon  exchanged  his  attic  oil  and  honey  for 
Egyptian  millet  and  wisdom.  Those  years 
from  625  to  550  were  interesting  years  for 
Egypt:  Psammetichus,  Necho,  Hophra,  Ama- 
sis, —  Pharaohs  opening  the  country  to  the  for- 
eigner, Greek  and  Phoenician ;  reviving  the  old 
canal  project  from  the  Nile  to  the  Red  Sea, 
sending  Phoenician  ships  around  Africa,  fight- 
ing Babylon,  and  finally  coming  under  the  rule 
of  Persia.  What  was  the  meaning  of  all  that? 
Egypt  was  middle  ground.  Babylon  was  mov- 
ing towards  the  West.  Egypt  cast  aside  tra- 
dition and  brought  in  strangers,  Greeks  and 
Phoenicians,  soldiers  and  sailors,  mercenaries 
and  traders.  It  was  too  late.  The  Egyptians 
had  been  sea-shy  too  long.  The  rule  must  be 
to  new  men,  or  of  the  East  or  of  the  West, 
Persians  or  a  people  speaking  Greek.  In  this 
respect  the  fortunes  of  Miletus  were  bound  up 
with  those  of  Egypt.     Miletus  now  may  stand 


EAST  BY  WEST  18 

as  the  symbol  of  the  rising  Greeks:  this  city 
had  found  the  North,  had  come  into  the  South, 
and  could  not  but  be  concerned  at  the  appear- 
ance of  a  new  power  beyond  the  Tigris.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  first  Egypt,  then  Miletus 
(year  494)  succumbed  to  Persia.  But  that 
was  merely  a  phase.     Empire  was  due  West. 

A  bare  fifty  years  after  the  decline  of  Mile- 
tus, Thucydides  could  say,  "  Athens  imports 
everything."  Athens  was  indeed  a  town  of 
ideas.  No  doubt  the  Corinthians  had  better 
commercial  heads,  and  learned  soonest  what  the 
Phoenicians  had  to  teach  in  the  strict  arts  of 
trade.  Sisyphus,  the  founder,  had  a  good  com- 
mercial head  himself.  Periander,  whose  tragic 
history  has  come  down  to  us,  lived  long  and 
was  a  wise  man ;  to  him  the  city  owed  its  great- 
ness as  much  as  to  any  man.  But  Corinth  was 
well  placed  for  trade.  The  settlement  became 
early  important  from  lying  on  the  Isthmus 
road,  the  commerce  of  Greece  being  at  first 
mainly  by  land  and  necessarily  following  this 
road  of  the  isthmus  if  north  was  to  reach  south 
and  south  north.  The  Corinthians  were  in  the 
way  and  imposed  duties.  They  grew  to  a  cer- 
tain opulence  by  their  tariffs.  They  profited 
by  the  conditions  at  sea  as  well.  North  of 
Crete,  stormy  seas  caused  merchants  to  bring 
their  goods  to  the  Isthmus.  Wares  of  the 
West,  Italy,  Sicily,  and  beyond,  were  brought 


14  EAST  BY  WEST 

to  the  harbor  Lechaeum ;  those  of  the  East  to 
Cenchrea, —  merchandise  of  the  Phoenicians, 
products  of  the  islands,  and  the  coasts  of  Asia 
Minor.  Commodities  were  conveyed  from  one 
harbor  to  the  other,  and  means  contrived  for 
transporting  even  vessels.  Corinth,  now  a 
mart  of  Asia  and  Europe,  continued  to  levy  du- 
ties on  foreign  merchandise,  built  her  own  ships 
and  formed  a  navy  to  protect  her  commerce, — 
for  example,  sailcloth  and  reams  of  paper  from 
Egypt,  ivory  from  Libya,  leather  of  Cyrene, 
incense  from  Syrian  ports,  Phoenician  dates, 
Carthaginian  carpets,  corn  and  cheese  of  Syra- 
cuse, pears  and  apples  of  Euboea,  Phrygian 
and  Thessalian  slaves.  The  Corinthian  Fair 
must  have  been  a  great  spectacle  in  its  best 
days,  for  the  games  of  the  Isthmus  also  drew 
to  Corinth  a  prodigious  number  of  strangers, 
whence  an  increase  to  the  wealth  of  the  State. 
Corinth  abounded  not  only  with  warehouses, 
but  with  manufactories  of  its  own.  The  place 
was  celebrated  for  its  brass  (not  yet  happily 
for  the  true  "  Corinthian  ")  whether  manufac- 
tured at  home  or  imported ;  for  its  earthen- 
ware besides,  bed  coverlets,  pictures  and 
statues.  There  were  few  Corinthian  men  of 
letters,  but  the  art  of  painting  is  said  to  have 
been  elaborated  there,  and  the  city  was  a  fa- 
mous dealer  in  objects  of  art.  A  maritime 
and  commercial  city,  its  temple  of  Venus  was 


EAST  BY  WEST  15 

at  one  time  so  rich  as  to  maintain  a  thousand 
votaries. 

Corinth  invented  the  trireme,  and  was  the 
first  of  the  Greek  States  to  set  up  a  military 
navy.  That  policy  meant  expansion,  and  the 
city  was  successful  beyond  all  Greek  States  as 
a  colonizer.  The  aristocracy,  as  at  Carthage, 
was  in  trade,  and  adhered  in  a  special  man- 
ner to  the  customs  of  the  Phoenicians  with  col- 
onies. In  the  flourishing  eighth  and  seventh 
centuries  at  Corinth,  the  rule  was  to  place  at 
the  head  of  a  colony  some  cadet  of  the  Bac- 
chiad  line,  supported  by  the  mercantile  nobil- 
ity. Thus  arose  Corcyra  and  Syracuse.  Cor- 
cyra,  being  nearer  home,  broke  away,  at  odds 
with  its  parent  over  the  trade  to  the  West  and 
the  dominance  of  the  sea  to  the  West.  Syra- 
cuse for  long  was  filial  enough  in  cordial  re- 
gard. It  is  interesting  to  reflect  on  the  part 
played  by  these  children  of  Corinth  —  Corcyra 
precipitating  the  Peloponnesian  War,  Syra- 
cuse seeing  an  end  of  it,  Athens  done  for  in 
its  mad  enterprise  that  way.  It  is  to  be  sup- 
posed that  Greece  had  a  destiny  in  the  West. 
But  there  was  no  union  of  energies,  which  per- 
haps is  as  much  as  to  say  that  no  part  of  cen- 
tral Greece  was  strong  enough  to  bring  all  the 
rest  under  and  then  move  on  any  line  chosen. 
Is  it  possible  for  small  states  to  accomplish  a 
great     deal     politically?     Hardly,     says     one 


16  EAST  BY  WEST 

school,  for  if  they  act  together  they  are  one 
state. 

SYRACUSE  AND  THE  ITALIC  GREEKS 
Even  so  late  as  Cicero,  Syracuse  was  called 
by  him  the  greatest  of  Greek  cities  and  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  cities.  Syracuse  was 
Sicily,  a  paradise  compared  to  sterile  Hellas. 
Beginning  by  the  ingenuity  of  Corinthians  this 
colony  became  the  center  of  Magna  Grascia,  a 
world  we  understand  little  of,  in  especial  why 
it  accomplished  no  more  in  the  end.  That 
question  need  not  vex  us  now,  we  having  our 
own  solicitudes  springing  from  the  activities  of 
races  with  domineering  programs.  But  we 
may  recall  that  the  Greeks  in  their  westward 
trend  came  to  Sicily  from  Corinth  and  Cor- 
cyra.  Other  Greeks  coming,  they  all,  a  few 
years  after  Romulus,  were  active  in  Italy. 
Then,  when  the  Calabrian  peninsula  had  grown 
quite  Hellenic,  (when  Psammetichus  was  giving 
outlanders  footing  in  Egypt),  still  other 
Greeks  found  the  way  to  Spain  and  Gaul. 
Kolaeus,  merchant  of  Samos,  voyaging  to 
Egypt,  was  driven  out  of  his  course  and  finally 
somewhat  beyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules, 
among  the  Iberians  and  the  Phoenicians.  This 
astonishing  voyage  to  the  silver  coasts  of  Tar- 
tcssus  was  not  followed  up  by  system,  but 
shortly  after,  Greeks  of  Phoc«ea,  near  Smyrna, 


EAST  BY  WEST  17 

came  to  settle  in  Gaul.  The  old  story  is  a 
good  one.  Phocaeans  made  the  coast  of  Spain, 
where  King  Arganthonius  the  Tartessian  was 
pleased  with  them  and  offered  them  room. 
They  refusing,  Arganthonius  gave  them  money 
to  defend  their  town  against  the  Persians. 
But  the  Persians  were  too  many  for  them,  and 
half  Phocasa  left  home  forever,  returning  to 
the  West,  first  to  Corsica,  then  settling  in 
Italy.  From  there,  maybe,  they  colonized 
Massilia,  Marseilles  on  the  southern  coast  of 
Gaul.  It  is  said  that  the  daughter  of  King 
Nannus  of  that  region,  whether  by  accident  or 
design,  gave  her  hand  in  marriage  to  the  Pho- 
casan  merchant  Eudoxenus :  and  so  the  Prin- 
cess Petta  was  co-founder  of  the  Grecians  at 
Marseilles. 

The  Massaliot  Greeks  made  their  city  a  gen- 
uine specimen  of  Hellenism.  They  were  care- 
ful in  their  dealings  with  the  native  tribes ; 
they  attempted  nothing  in  the  way  of  domi- 
nance, merely  by  superior  intelligence  and  in- 
dustry supplying  the  country's  wants  and 
showing  the  country  what  a  lettered  civiliza- 
tion was.  The  Masaliot  Greeks  were  curious. 
Their  navigator  Pytheas  explored  the  coasts 
of  western  Europe  as  far  as  the  Baltic  and 
perhaps  beyond.  Indeed,  after  the  energy  of 
the  Ionic  Greeks  had  been  checked  by  their  in- 
land enemies,  the  Massaliots  were  the  only  en- 


18  EAST  BY  WEST 

terprising  mariners  in  the  western  Mediterra- 
nean, excepting  the  Carthaginians  and  the 
Phoenicians.  The  Hellenic  world  was  in  the 
sixth  century  different  from  what  it  was  in  the 
fifth  century.  Had  not  the  Ionic  Greeks  been 
so  hard  pressed  from  behind,  from  about  the 
year  500,  the  Phoenicians  in  Tartessus  would 
have  been  confronted  as  they  were  in  Sicily. 
In  the  sixth  century  the  Italic  and  Ionic  Greeks 
were  the  great  ornaments  of  the  Hellenic  name, 
and  their  trade  with  each  other  was  more  de- 
veloped than  the  trade  of  either  with  Greece 
proper.  By  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  the 
independence  of  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor  was 
gone,  and  the  power  of  the  Italic  Greeks  was 
greatly  broken.  Sparta  and  Athens,  of  politi- 
cal aptitudes,  were  now  up,  and  what  their 
rivalship  led  to  we  know.  The  Persian  wars 
came  near  uniting  the  Greeks.  Then  Athens 
went  too  far,  and  Syracuse,  most  of  all,  broke 
Athens  down. 

Let  us  lump  the  Persian  and  the  Phoenician 
as  essential  factors  in  that  world,  remembering 
that  in  the  same  year  480,  the  Persians  were  at 
Salamis  and  the  Carthaginians  moved  on  Sicily. 
The  case  was  altered  since  the  time  when  Egypt 
was  being  opened  up,  and  Greek  mercenaries 
were  defending  Phoenicia  against  Babylon.  As 
affairs  went,  sea  power  meaning  so  much,  the 
struggle  was  on  b}'  the  year  480,  between  the 


EAST  BY  WEST  19 

Greek  and  the  Phoenician  naval  armaments. 
The  Greeks,  very  individualistic,  had  been 
startled,  first  by  Croesus,  then  by  Persia,  into 
some  sort  of  union.  Persia  thought  to  absorb 
the  Ionic  cities,  lying  between  Persia  and  a 
western  sea.  Bias,  the  sage,  counseled  a  gen- 
eral removal  of  the  Ionic  populations  to  Sar- 
dinia. His  advice  was  not  followed,  nor  did 
Persia  quite  absorb  those  states.  But  if  Per- 
sia was  to  keep  its  hold  of  them,  and  chastise 
Attica  for  its  sympathies,  then  Persia,  having 
no  ships,  must  use  the  ships  of  the  Phoenicians, 
at  hand  and  in  control.  Very  intricate  poli- 
tics then  —  Greeks  ever3'where,  using  their  wits 
everywhere,  (Skylax  of  Karyanda,  for  instance 
surveying  the  Indus  for  Darius,  father  of 
Xerxes)  ;  Phoenicians  everywhere,  if  we  let  Car- 
thage pass  as  Phoenician :  the  conspicuous  po- 
litical force  of  the  world  lodged  in  Persia. 

PERIOD  OF  THE  PERSIAN  CONTROL 

After  the  event,  we  may  regard  Persia  as 
merely  the  preparer  of  the  way  for  Macedon ; 
and  the  Greeks  and  Phoenicians  in  the  West  as 
but  the  shapers  of  the  Mediterranean  for  Rome. 
Commercially,  the  world  stood  how  at  the  com- 
ing in  of  Persia  and  during  the  grasp  of  Per- 
sia ?  About  as  thus :  —  The  whole  of  central 
Asia,  already  brought  in  closer  contact  by  the 
policies  of  Assyria  and  Babylon,  now  assumed 


20  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  internal  arrangement  of  a  settled  empire, 
and  the  merchant  pursued  his  way  in  some  tran- 
quillity from  Sardis  to  Bactria.  Central  Asia 
was  as  well  known  then  as  now,  perhaps  better, 
there  being  more  to  know.  Babylon  was  there, 
the  capital  of  the  world.  Tyre  and  its  Phoe- 
nician neighbors  still  served  as  the  principal 
channels  of  trade  from  Asia  to  Europe. 
Egypt  had  opened  Naucratis  to  sea-traffic,  let- 
ting in  East  and  West  for  to  try,  as  it  were, 
which  should  possess  the  power  there.  A  phase 
of  the  extraordinary  Greek  expansion  of  the 
eighth  and  seventh  centuries,  Cyrene,  west  of 
Egypt  on  the  coast  road  to  Carthage,  had  been 
founded  by  Battus  of  Thera,  and  the  region 
Cyrenaica  soon  grew  great  commercially,  a 
rival  to  Carthage.  Across  the  sea,  ("Our 
Sea  "  the  Greeks  might  have  been  saying  then), 
Italic  Greece  was  fast  getting  the  wealth  which 
was  to  prove  so  fatal  to  it  later,  the  oil  and 
wine  trade  to  Gaul  and  Africa  being  especially 
lucrative.  Massilia  was  Greek,  for  the  inter- 
nal trade  of  Gaul.  Gades  and  other  independ- 
ent Phoenician  towns  had  for  centuries  been 
monopolists  of  the  trade  of  Spain,  metals  and 
all  the  rest.  Carthage,  which  rose  to  commer- 
cial greatness  under  Hanno  as  Persia  was  com- 
ing up,  began  soon  to  be  more  than  commer- 
cial: commercial  certainly,  holding  Africa  as 
its  own  by  trade,  with  its  destiny  plain  in  the 


EAST  BY  WEST  21 

Mediterranean.  The  Pontic  Greeks  (among 
whom  Hannibal  was  to  die),  now  rather  cut  off 
from  their  bases  in  Asia  Minor,  Corinth  and 
Athens  had  secured  for  themselves  the  com- 
merce of  the  ^gean  and  the  Black  Sea.  We 
have  no  particular  reason  to  mention  Rome  or 
Macedon  for  a  good  many  years  after  the  ar- 
rival of  Persia  in  550. 

Persia,  Macedon,  Rome,  how  pleasing  it  is 
to  observe  them  in  the  rude  beginnings  of  their 
strength,  for  we  must  suspect  that  civilization, 
if  not  certainly  a  weakener,  is  so  unless  very 
carefully  managed.  But  when  all  is  said,  the 
rise  and  fall  of  nations  remains  a  mystery. 
Nor  is  it  anything  but  idle  to  enquire  the  cause 
at  length.  The  world  is  a  world  of  souls,  and 
if  many  people  in  a  nation  let  their  souls  get 
wrong,  the  nation  is  bound  to  fall  off.  Not 
even  great  men  can  save  a  rotten  people.  The 
Persians  as  they  were  at  first  made  a  very  good 
showing  indeed.  They  soon  learned  how  to  be 
soft.  It  has  been  held  that  Philip  of  Macedon 
was  an  abler  man  than  his  son  Alexander. 
Ma^'be  the  hard  drinking  Macedonians  had 
more  virtue  in  them  than  the  hair  splitting 
Greeks  who  succumbed  to  them.  If  only  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  an  all  round  man  or  an  all 
round  nation.  Is  that  what  we  are  tending 
towards,  destined  to  make  endless  trouble  until 
the  happy  event.''     For  instance,  the  world  has 


22  EAST  BY  WEST 

been  full  of  slaves  because  of  mankind's  inborn 
desire  for  freedom.  This  is  no  apology  for 
Persia.  It  is  matter  of  gratification  that  the 
forms  of  slavery  have  changed  with  the  cen- 
turies ;  and  we  are  glad  enough  that  Persia 
was  worsted  and  Carthage  rooted  up.  We 
have  no  fancy  for  the  story  Herodotus  tells  of 
Xerxes,  setting  out  from  Sardis,  how  on  either 
side  the  road  the  army  went  was  hung  one-half 
the  body  of  a  man  for  the  purpose  of  teach- 
ing the  subjects  of  Persia  a  lesson.  The 
slaughtered  man  was  the  eldest  son  of  Pythius, 
an  ancient  of  Phrygia,  very  rich.  He  had  en- 
tertained Xerxes  in  the  coures  of  his  march 
from  Cappadocia,  and  had  previously  recom- 
mended himself  by  hospitality  to  Darius,  fa- 
ther of  Xerxes.  The  moneyed  Pythius  was  so 
lavish  in  his  offers  of  aid  for  the  expedition 
against  Greece  that  Xerxes  asked  him  what 
was  the  amount  of  his  wealth.  "  Besides  lands, 
slaves,  and  two  thousand  talents  of  silver,"  re- 
plied Pythius,  "  I  possess  four  million  darics 
of  gold,  less  a  few  thousand.  All  this  gold  and 
silver  I  present  to  thee,  retaining  my  lands  and 
slaves,  which  will  be  wealth  enough."  Xerxes 
was  pleased,  refused  the  offer,  and  even  gave 
the  old  man  seven  thousand  darics,  so  as  to 
bring  his  treasure  up  to  four  millions  exact. 
Pythius  then  preferred  a  prayer:  his  five  sons 
were  all  about  to  serve  in  the  army  for  invad- 


EAST  BY  WEST  23 

ing  Greece  —  might  not  the  eldest  be  allowed 
to  keep  at  home  to  care  for  his  father  in  his 
declining  years?  The  anger  of  Xerxes  was  at 
once  enflamed.  "  Wretch,"  he  said,  "  you  are 
my  slave.  I,  with  my  sons,  brothers,  relations, 
and  friends,  am  on  the  march  against  Greece. 
Dare  you  talk  to  me  of  your  son?  The  pun- 
ishment inflicted  on  you  shall  not  be  the  full 
measure  of  your  deserts.  You  and  your  four 
sons  shall  be  spared ;  but  him  you  wish  to  keep 
in  safety  shall  forfeit  his  life."  And  so  the 
command  was  given  to  put  the  eldest  son  of 
Pythius  to  death,  sever  his  body  in  twain,  one- 
half  to  be  fixed  on  the  right  hand,  the  other 
half  on  the  left  hand  of  the  road  along  which 
the  army  was  to  pass. —  Conquerors  know  how 
to  color  their  narratives,  but  this  story  is 
doubtless  really  significant  of  the  old  fashioned 
despotism  the  world  had  to  shake  off.  And  a 
complicated  business  it  is. 

THE  MACEDONIAN  PHILIP 

On  the  other  hand.  Liberty  could  not  feel 
itself  greatly  encouraged  by  the  careers  of 
Philip  of  Macedon  and  his  son  Alexander. 
Those  were  difficult  times,  and  the  side  with 
a  definite  policy  could  make  advantage  of  its 
opportunities.  Philip  was  a  ^Macedonian,  not 
a  Greek.  He  did  not  understand  the  Greek 
spirit,  which   considered  the  rights  of  man  a 


24  EAST  BY  WEST 

good  deal.  He  was  not  bothered  by  Greek 
refinements,  and  coming  into  a  confused  time 
for  Greece,  made  himself  felt  throughout,  go- 
ing rough  shod.  The  Hellenic  world  was  de- 
clining in  health:  Demosthenes  (to  take  him  at 
the  traditional  valuation)  could  not  bring  it 
round.  Sparta  was  corrupt  and  dead. 
Thebes  was  not  potent  now.  Athens  was 
strong  at  sea  again,  but  unable  to  manage  her 
confederacy' :  the  citizen  militia  had  gone  down, 
there  was  an  aversion  for  military  exercises 
and  a  fondness  for  mercenaries.  Philip  came 
to  his  throne  in  the  year  359.  Within  ten 
years  he  had  terrified  Greece.  His  engines  of 
war  were  admirable  —  the  Sarissa,  long  pikes 
or  lancers ;  the  phalanx ;  light  infantry ;  siege 
batteries.  He  showed  the  world  how  an  army 
could  be  disciplined,  not  for  spring  and  sum- 
mer, but  for  all  the  year  campaigns.  He  built 
fast  ships,  in  part  merely  to  prove  that  he 
could  take  the  sea,  to  vex  Athens  by  the  sight 
of  his  triremes.  But  he  was  not  trifling.  For 
his  empire  he  needed  his  neighbors  of  the  Olyn- 
thian  Confederacy.  At  one  time  it  was 
thought  he  might  absorb  that  Confederacy 
without  war.  The  result  was  not  so.  He  an- 
nihilated thirty-two  cities  of  it  within  two  years 
and  a  half,  and  Greece  was  in  terror.  Ten 
3'ears  after,  notwithstanding  the  Athenian 
navy,  he  could  call  Greece  his  own,  so  to  speak. 


EAST  BY  WEST  25 

At  his  Congress  of  Corinth  he  announced  his 
purpose  to  invade  Asia,  and  made  conditions 
by  which  Athens  was  humbled  into  giving  up  a 
maritime  supremacy  in  Greece.  Then  Philip 
was  assassinated,  aetat.  47,  a  great  man,  "  de- 
stroyer of  freedom  and  independence  in  the 
Hellenic  world." 

ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT 

Alexander  his  son  had  already  shown  him- 
self a  skillful  commander,  and  coming  into  his 
heritage  of  an  elaborate  military  system,  was 
prepared  to  go  on  with  his  father's  work. 
Aristotle  had  schooled  him  to  believe  his  mis- 
sion was  somewhat  of  a  divine  one.  Alexander 
was  an  apt  pupil.  To  hold  Greece,  Alexander 
knew  that  he  should  have  to  bring  Persia  to 
terms.  The  Persian  policy  was  not  now  to 
control  Greece,  except  by  diplomacy  —  by 
bribes  to  raise  up  a  party  that  should  keep 
Macedonia  from  controlling  Greece.  Hence 
Alexander's  course  was  marked  out  for  him, 
even  if  his  ambitions  had  not  been  vast.  His 
army  was  behind  him,  and  he  was  nominated 
President  of  a  general  Hellenic  Confederacy, 
with  full  powers  by  land  and  sea,  each  unit  of 
the  confederacy  to  keep  its  constitution.  So 
much  for  conventions.  The  deputies  granted 
to  him  as  to  his  father  permission  to  invade 
Asia.      But    before    invading    Asia,    Alexander 


26  EAST  BY  WEST 

deemed  it  prudent  to  quell  Servia  (what  we  call 
Servia),  and  the  Danube  country.  He  accom- 
plished this  errand  speedily.  Thebes  growing 
restive,  Alexander  effaced  it  from  the  earth. 
Afterwards  he  fancied  that  ill  luck  came  to  him 
from  the  inspiration  of  Dionysus,  god  of  wine, 
a  principal  figure  in  Theban  legend.  Alexan- 
der the  great  was  thoroughly  familiar  with 
Greek  literature.  He  knew  the  tragedies  and 
the  old  theories  of  retribution.  The  operations 
of  his  mind  were  just,  swift,  and  vehement  — 
as  a  military  strategist  he  stands  before  all  of 
antiquity.  His  mind  accordant  to  fact,  in  his 
reading  he  looked  for  the  interpretation  of 
fact  and  the  indication  of  the  high  powers 
above  fact.  Meteoric,  in  some  lay  manner  he 
drew  upon  the  theoric  fund. 

Moving  into  Asia  in  the  spring  of  .334,  Alex- 
ander never  came  home  to  Europe  again.  His 
life  thenceforward  was  a  miracle  of  eleven 
years,  ending  fittingly  at  Babylon.  One  opin- 
ion regarding  his  achievements  has  been  that 
the  result  was  much  as  if  Xerxes  had  conquered 
Greece  in  the  century  preceding.  Greece 
dwindled  to  a  mere  community  attached  to  an 
eastern  empire.  Some  such  outcome  might  al- 
most have  been  forecast.  Greeks  had  been 
long  concerned  in  Eastern  affairs,  and  being 
Greeks  their  intelligence  was  to  rule  in  the 
end.     During    Philip's    time    Greeks    had    won 


EAST  BY  WEST  27 

back  Egypt  for  Persia.  Alexander  overcame 
Darius,  in  whose  effective  force  were  more 
Greeks  than  were  in  the  armies  of  Alexander. 
If  we  are  to  appraise  Alexander,  it  might  be 
said  that  he  did  the  rough  work  necessary  to 
the  formal  Hellenizing  of  Asia.  No  matter 
what,  he  would  have  won,  but  as  it  was,  his 
enemies  misemployed  their  wits.  Memnon's 
policy  of  wearing  down  and  using  fleets  to 
strike  the  rear  would  have  damaged  Alexander 
much.  The  millions  of  money  in  the  strong 
boxes  at  Susa  and  Persepolis  (hoarded  against 
evil  days)  might  have  been  dangerously  applied 
in  fending;  in  bearing  gifts  to  persons  influen- 
tial by  land  and  sea.  What  policy  the  Great 
King  permitted  availed  nothing  —  we  check  the 
items  of  his  ruin,  and  further :  the  Granicus : 
Issus:  Siege  of  Tyre:  siege  of  Gaza:  Egypt: 
Arbela :  Babylon :  Persepolis :  India :  Babylon, 
and  the  end.  Chaldaean  priests  had  warned 
Alexander  not  to  enter  Babylon  the  second 
time.  When  the  end  came,  open  minded  philos- 
ophers with  the  army  may  have  entered  a  memo- 
randum as  touching  the  untimely  death  of  the 
monarch  whom  Kallisthenes,  open-minded  phi- 
losopher, had  refused  to  worship,  suffering 
death  in  consequence. 

Alexander  would  have  heeded  the  Chaldaean 
priests.  He  was  argued  out  of  his  decision  by 
the  man  of  letters,  Anaxarchus,  who  had  moved 


28  EAST  BY  WEST 

first  in  the  matter  of  proposing  honors  to  the 
conqueror  as  to  a  divinity.  Besides,  Alexan- 
der was  enthusiastic  to  see  the  new  docks  he 
had  ordered  for  Babylon,  and  the  cypress-wood 
ships  that  were  building  there,  and  the  ships 
from  Phoenicia  that  were  to  come  down  the 
river,  transported  from  the  coast  to  Thapsa- 
cus.  He  was  also  to  consult  his  admiral  Near- 
chus,  with  whom  he  had  sailed  down  the  Indus 
to  the  ocean,  and  to  receive  the  reports  of  other 
naval  officers  who  had  been  surveying  the  Per- 
sian gulf.  It  was  the  determination  of  Alex- 
ander to  circumnavigate  Arabia,  learn  the  sea 
road  to  the  East  from  the  Red  Sea  (forgotten 
since  Skylax),  found  a  great  maritime  city  in 
the  Persian  gulf  to  rival  in  wealth  and  com- 
merce the  cities  of  Phoenicia.  Tyre  and  Gaza 
had  stood  in  his  way  —  the  hardest  fighting  of 
his  life.  He  subdued  them,  after  nine  stubborn 
months.  He  understood  the  movement  of  the 
world's  commerce  and  meant  to  control  it,  but 
was  especially  resolved  to  make  sure  his  hold 
on  western  Asia,  where  neither  Greek  nor  Phoe- 
nician was  to  bo  left  able  to  support  Persia. 
And  so  Alexandria  was  marked  by  meal  in 
ground  plan,  year  330,  the  idea  being  not  so 
much  to  establish  the  commercial  city  the  place 
became,  as  to  fix  a  base  from  which  to  rule 
Egypt  as  part  of  the  founder's  empire  round 
the  ^gean.     There  is  no  saying  how  insignifi- 


EAST  BY  WEST  29 

cant  Alexandria  might  have  been,  if  circum- 
stances had  not  made  it  the  capital  of  its  own 
Ptolemaic  monarchy.  As  Kallisthenes  said, 
"  There  is  little  to  be  gained  by  making  Alex- 
ander out  a  God."  Certainly,  he  had  a  devis- 
ing mind.  The  Persians  had  run  a  few  good 
roads,  from  Sardis  perhaps  as  far  as  India. 
Had  Alexander  lived  he  would  have  multiplied 
such  communications.  We  read  that  at  the 
time  of  his  death  he  was  considering  a  road  all 
along  the  northern  coast  of  Africa,  to  involve 
naturally  the  brushing  aside  of  Carthage.  He 
met  his  death  from  the  interest  he  took  in  re- 
storing the  old  river  traffic  by  Babylon.  His 
admirals  had  their  reports  drawn  up  for  sea 
routes  to  the  East,  from  the  Red  Sea  to  the 
Malabar  coast.  Alexander  had  given  orders 
for  a  fleet  to  explore  the  Caspian  Sea.  He  be- 
lieved still  in  the  Northern  Mystery,  that  the 
Caspian  was  connected  with  the  Eastern  ocean. 
Aristotle,  we  must  not  forget,  had  talked  much 
with  him,  and  had  posed  the  question  — "  May 
not  India  lie  near  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  ?  " 

SICILY  AND  AFRICA 

After  Alexander,  what.''  Conspicuously,  an 
Hellenic  East,  Ptolemaic  and  Seleucid;  con- 
spicuously in  the  West,  Greeks  opposite  Car- 
thaginians ;  and,  not  so  conspicuously  for  many 
years,  the  bulking  of  Rome  as  a  land  power  — 


30  EAST  BY  WEST 

Greek-Macedonian,  Carthaginian,  Roman,  their 
destinies  very  much  involved;  to  which  of  them 
the  power  to  direct  East,  West,  or  both  East 
and  West?  The  time  had  plainly  come  for 
movements  on  a  great  scale  in  which  the  West 
must  be  more  nearly  concerned  with  the  East. 
Alexander  had  made  a  stir  in  the  world.  Look- 
ing back  it  can  be  seen  that  he  set  a  fashion 
that  was  to  have  a  long  vogue ;  it  can  be  seen 
at  the  least,  that  there  was  something  inherent 
in  the  West  that  was  to  make  it  rule.  Alex- 
ander has  had  sedulous  apes,  many  of  them  very 
able,  many  not  counting  palpably.  Ophelias, 
who  commanded  one  of  his  triremes  down  the 
Indus,  was  a  few  years  later  put  in  charge  of 
the  Cyrenaic  country  west  of  Egypt,  which 
Ptolemy  desired  to  keep  hold  of.  The  report 
is,  that  from  Cyrene  Ophelias  had  surveyed  the 
whole  coast  of  Northern  Africa,  to  the  straits 
of  Gibraltar  and  round  the  old  Phoenician  set- 
tlements on  the  West  Coast.  Ophelias  knew 
something  of  what  Alexandrine  meant.  When 
Agathocles  the  amazing  ran  the  Carthaginian 
blockade  about  Syracuse  and  invaded  the  fair 
slavish  territory  of  Carthage  in  Africa,  he 
made  offers  to  Ophelias,  who  for  his  coadjutor- 
ship  was  to  have  North  Africa,  Agathocles 
keeping  only  Syracuse  and  Sicily,  which  could 
not  be  held  unless  Carthage  was  checked. 
Ophelias  joined  forces  and  got  murdered  for 


EAST  BY  WEST  SI 

his  pains.  Agathocles,  whose  history  reads  like 
a  sort  of  bizarre  dream,  won  home  to  Sicily 
and  carried  through  a  long  life  successful  to 
the  end.  His  daughter  Lanassa  was  the  fourth 
wife  of  Pyrrhus,  whose  character  as  a  restless 
adventurer, — "  His  eager  desire  and  pursuit 
after  what  he  had  not,  hindered  him  from  keep- 
ing what  he  had,"  is  written  down  so  nicely 
in  Plutarch.  Pyrrhus  began  his  brilliant  ac- 
tions about  the  year  300,  shortly  after  Aga- 
thocles had  come  home  from  his  African  ex- 
cursions. Alexander  had  done  much  in  the 
East.  Why  should  not  Pyrrhus,  Epirot  too, 
subdue  the  West?  He  came  very  near  it.  But 
Rome  was  not  dashed  by  his  new  engines  of 
war, —  his  elephants, —  was  not  to  be  brought 
to  terms  at  the  worst  moment,  kept  muddling 
on,  and  got  rid  of  the  Epirot.  In  Sicily  he 
worsted  Carthage,  but  was  unable  to  manage 
the  Greeks.  Leaving  the  island  he  said,  by  the 
account,  "  My  friends,  how  glorious  a  field  of 
war  do  we  leave  for  the  Romans  and  Car- 
thaginians to  fight  in."  Pyrrhus  knew  what 
the  issue  was  in  fact.  He  had  come  to  grips 
with  both,  and  had  gauged  the  Greeks. 

The  Italic  Greeks  had  served  as  a  stop-gap, 
giving  Rome  a  chance  to  rise,  although  it  must 
be  said  that,  among  those  complexities,  Rome 
was  kept  free  of  Greek  dominance  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Carthaginian.     By  coming  in,  the 


32  EAST  BY  WEST 

Italic  Greeks  had  broken  the  through  East  and 
West  traffic  of  the  Tyrians.  Trouble  from 
Mesopotamia  had  caused  T3're  to  send  out  its 
Colony,  New-Town  in  Africa,  Carthage,  which 
was  increased  by  the  settlement  there  of  old 
commercial  firms  and  noble  families  of  Tyre, 
trouble  in  Asia  continuing.  A  good  site,  Car- 
thage grew  and  formed  a  political  program,  to 
hold  the  western  Mediterranean  by  organiza- 
tion. So  the  Italic  Greeks  coming  into  the 
vague  west  (like  Europeans  to  America),  began 
to  be  hampered  in  their  developments.  They 
were  pretty  widely  civilized.  Rome  and  Car- 
thage, to  the  North  and  South  of  them,  cared 
little  for  the  arts  and  sciences  as  such.  Car- 
thage, at  the  clash  with  Rome  had  the  more 
culture.  Land  at  Rome,  capital  at  Carthage 
were  the  desiderata.  It  might  be  said  of  both 
that  there  was  an  unscrupulous  employment  of 
political  ascendancy  in  the  furtherance  of  the 
private  interests  of  every  wealthy  citizen. 
Rome,  gaining  more  and  more  land  in  Italy, 
must  naturally  look  to  a  maritime  control  of 
the  Italian  coasts,  to  a  closing  of  the  Adriatic, 
and  the  shaking  off  of  Carthage  wherever  feasi- 
ble. For  after  the  expulsion  of  Pyrrhus  from 
Italy  and  Sicily,  had  not  Carthage  warned 
Rome  not  to  push  matters  too  far? — "Unless 
we  will,  no  Roman  may  even  wash  his  hands  in 


EAST  BY  WEST  33 

the  sea."  Inevitably,  Punic  wars,  wars  for  the 
purple,  a  hundred  years  and  more  to  146,  when 
Carthage  disappeared  for  a  time  from  the  earth. 
As  for  the  Italic  Greeks,  what  they  might  have 
done  we  cannot  say.  They  knew  the  doctrine 
of  Prometheus,  Sisyphus,  Laokoon.  Perhaps 
they  had  their  great  chance  with  Pyrrhus. 
Their  funeral  was  celebrated  by  Marcellus  when 
he  took  their  city,  Syracuse,  in  the  3'ear  212, 
and  sent  back  to  Rome  so  many  fine  pictures 
and  statues,  giving  Rome  a  new  taste.  The 
greatest  wealth  and  prosperity  of  Syracuse  was 
during  the  sixty  years  precedent  to  Marcellus, 
under  Hiero  and  alliance  with  Rome.  Hiero's 
grandson  went  back  to  Carthage  and  brought 
ruin  down.  Under  Hiero  Sicily  had  flourished, 
that  "  oecumenical  island,"  a  very  important 
melting  pot.  Commerce,  with  Egypt  in  espe- 
cial, was  assiduously  cultivated,  the  Greek 
Egypt  of  Philadelphus,  Euergetes,  and  Philo- 
pator.  How  edifying  to  contemplate  Rome  ap- 
proaching Egypt  by  Sicily  —  Sicilian  protec- 
torate, Egyptian  intercourse,  Egyptian  protec- 
torate ;  for  after  Philopator  Rome  ruled  Egypt 
with  reference  to  her  own  Eastern  policy :  noth- 
ing could  please  Rome  better  than  such  a  pro- 
tectorate —  bolstering  weak  Ptolemies,  curb- 
ing strong  Ptolemies. 


34  EAST  BY  WEST 

EGYPT,  ALEXANDRIA,  AND  ASIA  MINOR 

Egypt,  O  Ammon,  what  a  country  was  there. 
We  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  old  Egypt  of 
the  young  world,  but  begin  late  with  Psamme- 
tichus  and  the  origins  of  the  western  control. 
Who  has  put  down  the  Burden  of  Egypt.'' 
Concerned  with  commerce  it  is  difficult  to  keep 
moral  issues  enough  before  the  mind.  Com- 
mercially, Egypt  was  never  so  prosperous  as 
under  the  just,  able  Ptolemies.  It  is  very  cer- 
tain that  during  the  forty  years  of  Phila- 
delphus,  Egypt  was  the  most  flourishing  coun- 
try in  existence.  Soter  had  worked  to  get  the 
kingdom  to  himself,  and  had  set  much  a-foot 
for  its  betterment.  His  son  Philadelphus, 
more  than  capable,  carried  on  the  congenial 
task.  Macedonians  like  the  first  Ptolemies  and 
their  neighbors  of  the  Seleucid  line  knew  how 
to  handle  "  native  populations  "  and  bring  them 
round  and  out.  The  Egyptians,  from  being 
haters  of  the  sea  because  it  swallowed  up  their 
Nile,  were  brought  to  understand  how  their  Nile 
could  be  made  to  swallow  up  the  sea,  that  is, 
the  commerce  of  the  sea.  We  can  imagine  the 
astonishment  of  old  Egyptians  at  beholding  the 
center  of  the  country  shifted  to  its  edge, 
brought  right  down  to  face  the  great  suspected 
world  outside.  Alexandria  was  building  many 
years,  but  may  be  ascribed  as  much  to  Phila- 


EAST  BY  WEST  35 

delphus  as  to  any  —  a  spacious  work  for  a 
large  purpose,  nothing  less  than  to  form  a  capi- 
tal for  the  world's  intellect  and  its  commercial 
affairs.  The  new  city  looked  out  North  to  the 
Mediterranean,  South  to  the  Lake  Mareotis. 
It  was  intersected  lengthwise  by  straight,  par- 
allel streets,  this  arrangement  leaving  a  free 
passage  for  the  northerly  winds  which  alone 
convey  coolness  and  salubrity  into  Egypt.  A 
very  wide  thoroughfare,  said  to  be  2000  feet 
wide,  began  at  the  Gate  of  the  Sea,  and  ter- 
minated at  the  Gate  of  Canopus.  In  this  ex- 
tensive range  the  eye  was  never  tired  with  ad- 
miring the  marble,  the  porphyry,  the  obelisks, 
destined  later  to  embellish  Rome  and  Constanti- 
nople. This  street,  the  handsomest  in  the  uni- 
verse, was  crossed  midway  by  another  of  equal 
breadth,  a  square  formed  at  the  juncture  half 
a  league  round.  From  the  middle  of  this  great 
place,  the  two  gates  were  to  be  seen  at  once, 
and  vessels  arriving  under  full  sail  from  the 
North  and  the  South,  Lake  Mareotis  being 
joined  by  canal  both  with  the  Nile  and  the  sea. 
The  high  Pharos  without,  the  libraries  within 
gave  light  to  traffic  and  to  the  mind. 

Pharaoh  Necho  had  had  some  such  dream. 
He  planned  to  join  Red  Sea  and  Mediterranean. 
His  priests  dissuaded  him,  arguing  that  the 
Mediterranean  was  the  higher,  would  flow  in 
and  swallow  the  country.     Philadelphus  digged 


36  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  canal,  from  Arsinoe,  near  Suez,  to  the 
Pelusiac  branch  of  the  Nile.  This  was  not 
enough.  The  Suez  end  of  the  Red  Sea  was  dif- 
ficult for  shipping.  Philadelphus  was  deter- 
mined to  bring  the  South  Eastern  trade  in  by 
all  roads  possible.  He  found  a  sheltered  haven 
at  a  spot  he  called  Berenice,  about  midway  of 
the  Red  Sea.  Up  the  Nile  from  Alexandria, 
some  three  hundred  miles,  Philadelphus  fixed 
upon  Coptos,  near  the  old  Thebes,  as  an  in- 
land emporium.  So  vessels  coming  up  the  Red 
sea  could  unload  at  Berenice,  (the  port  was 
changed  at  one  time  to  IMyos  Hormos,  farther 
north),  send  their  cargoes  on  by  caravan  to  Cop- 
tos —  two  hundred  and  fifty-eight  miles,  twelve 
days, —  and  thence  by  river  boat  to  Alexandria. 
Strabo  and  Pliny  have  described  the  route  at 
length.  At  first  the  caravans  traveled  by  star- 
light, then  cisterns  were  installed  and  the  cara- 
van could  go  as  it  pleased.  In  Pliny's  time  the 
trade  of  the  Red  Sea  was  largely  Indian,  but 
to  Philadelphus  Indian  meant  chiefly  ^  the 
Southern  or  African  trade  towards  Sofala, 
Solomon's  Ophir,  John  Milton  thought.  At 
any  rate,  Philadelphus  was  damaging  Tyre  as 
far  as  he  well  could.  In  pursuance  of  that  end 
he  founded  Ptolemais,  below  Tyre,  to  supply 
the  Syrian  coast  with  commodities  of  Europe; 

1  West  and    East  Indies  were  in  the  very  old   times 
divided  at  the  Strait  of  Bab-el-Mandeb. 


EAST  BY  WEST  37 

and  Philadelphia,  on  the  eastern  verge  of  Pales- 
tine, connecting  with  Tadmor,  the  Euphrates, 
and  the  Persian  Gulf, 

So  the  Alexandria  of  Philadelphus  was  ad- 
justed commercially  for  the  land  trade  over 
Asia  and  Africa,  for  the  sea  trade  of  the  Medi- 
terranean and  the  sea  trade  of  the  Indian  Ocean 

—  great  part  of  the  trade  of  the  world.  With 
respect  to  the  land  trade,  Philadelphus  could 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Northern  route  — 
from  Indus  to  Oxus  to  Caspian  and  Black  Sea 

—  that  was  the  concern  of  Seleucus  and  his  son, 
Seleucus  planning  a  canal  from  the  Caspian  to 
the  Black  Sea.  But  Philadelphus  at  least  had 
his  eye  on  India:  he  sent  the  mathematician 
Dionysius  there,  whose  reports  were  very  ex- 
act. Seleucus  had  ordered  Megasthenes  to  In- 
dia, ambassador  to  Sandracottus ;  and  it  is  to 
be  supposed  that  the  great  foundation  of  Seleu- 
cus, the  city  Antioch,  drew  to  itself  much  of 
the  caravan  trade  of  Mesopotamia.  As  for 
the  Mediterranean,  Alexandria  was  constrained 
to  share  with  Corinth,  Carthage,  and  Rhodes, 
Rhodes  at  this  time  beginning  to  be  very  indus- 
trious as  manufacturer  of  war  munitions  and  as 
organizer  of  commerce  in  the  large.  Corinth 
was  now  very  active  in  the  Indian  trade  by  the 
Black  Sea  and  the  Northern  route.  But  Phila- 
delphus, universalist,  placed  Alexandria  on  a 
sure  commercial  basis,  maintained  with  vicissi- 


38  EAST  BY  WEST 

tudes  for  how  many  centuries  until  navigation 
went  another  way  about  Africa.  After  Pyr- 
rhus  left  Italy  it  is  said  Philadelphus  made  a 
treaty  with  Rome.  The  Sicilian  Greeks  were 
also  his  rivals  in  trade,  but  they  found  an  ex- 
cellent market  with  him  for  their  wool.  Archi- 
medes, who  went  down  with  Syracuse,  followed 
his  studies  at  Alexandria,  under  a  philosopher 
attached  to  the  Museum  of  Philadelphus.  The 
world  was  pretty  closely  connected  then.  And 
as  Rome  grew  and  Roman  luxury  grew,  Alex- 
andria throve  and  throve,  catering  to  that  lux- 
ury, before  and  after  absorption  by  Rome. 

ROME  VS.  CARTHAGE  AND  CORINTH 

From  Rome  to  Syracuse  is  not  very  far  to- 
day: it  was  a  long  road  in  the  making.  And 
it  is  a  little  curious  that  from  Syracuse  to 
Carthage  and  from  Syracuse  to  Corinth  the 
distance  by  the  map  is  much  the  same  as  from 
Syracuse  to  Rome.  Long  after  the  forces  have 
been  differently  correlated  it  is  pleasing  to  the 
fancy  to  draw  such  lines  and  speculate  on  how 
the  correlations  came  about.  Mommsen  affirms 
that  before  the  overturning  of  Hannibal  and 
the  taking  over  of  Spain,  the  Romans  had  no 
higher  aim  than  to  acquire  command  of  the 
Italian  Peninsula,  that  they  achieved  the  sover- 
eignty   of    Italy    because    they    strove    for    it ; 


EAST  BY  WEST  39 

whereas  the  control  of  the  territories  of  the 
Mediterranean  was  a  good  deal  thrown  into  the 
hands  of  the  Romans  by  the  stress  of  circum- 
stance, they  themselves  not  intending  to  acquire 
that  control.  How  startling  to  hear  Mommsen 
say  further :  "  The  living  of  different  nations 
side  by  side  in  peace  and  amity  upon  the  whole, 
—  although  maintaining  an  attitude  of  mutual 
antagonism  —  which  appears  to  be  the  aim  of 
modem  phases  of  national  life,  was  a  thing  for- 
eign to  antiquity.  In  ancient  times  it  was  nec- 
essary to  be  either  hammer  or  anvil."  Rome's 
destiny  was  great  and  dreadful,  but  the  early 
Republic  of  Rome  knew  nothing  of  that:  the 
government  then  wished  and  desired  nothing  but 
the  sovereignty  of  Italy,  and  had  logically  to 
be  careful  not  to  have  too  powerful  neighbors 
alongside.  From  the  very  sound  view  that  they 
ought  not  to  suflFer  the  kernel  of  their  empire 
to  be  dwindled  by  the  shell,  the  government  op- 
posed stubbornly  the  introduction,  first  of 
Africa,  then  of  Greece,  and  lastly  of  Asia  into 
the  sphere  of  the  Roman  protectorate,  until  cir- 
cumstances in  each  case  compelled,  or  at  least 
suggested  with  irresistible  force,  the  extension 
of  that  sphere.  The  ancient  world  knew  al- 
most nothing  of  a  balance  of  power  among  na- 
tions ;  the  growth  of  Rome  was  but  the  neces- 
sary development  of  the  international  relations 


40  EAST  BY  WEST 

of  antiquity  generally.  It  is  well  to  listen  to 
Mommsen  at  this  stricken  moment  in  the  world's 
affairs. 

However,  if  that  is  the  high  philosophy  of 
Rome's  career,  it  is  certain  that  there  was 
among  the  Romans  a  blind  dread  of  Carthage, 
leading  on  to  vast  results.  And  it  is  very  prob- 
able that  the  dread  of  Carthage  at  last,  like 
the  dislike  of  Corinth,  was  inspired  by  the 
mercantile  party.  Those  at  Rome  interested 
in  commerce  must  have  felt  that  the  year  146 
was  an  excellent  year  for  them,  what  we  call 
a  bullish  year.  On  the  fall  of  Carthage,  the 
bull  of  Phalaris  was  returned  to  Sicily,  but 
most  of  the  booty  fell  to  the  Roman  State: 
most  of  the  prisoners  were  sold  as  slaves,  but 
not  Hasdrubal's  wife.  The  ruins  of  Carthage, 
Cato's  advice  followed,  burned  for  seventeen 
days.  The  plow  was  passed  over  the  site  of 
Carthage,  so  as  to  put  an  end  by  legal  form 
to  its  existence.  The  soil  and  site  of  Carthage 
were  cursed  forever,  so  that  neither  house  nor 
cornfield  might  ever  reappear  within  the  space 
covered  by  the  bull's  hide  of  the  clever  Tyrians. 
—  Turn  we  to  Corinth,  year  also  146.  The 
Greeks  by  their  folly  brought  their  troubles 
upon  them,  and  were  better  off  after  Rome's 
chastisement  than  they  had  been  before:  for 
the  Romans,  very  enthusiastic  for  abstract 
Hellenism,  spared  the  Greeks,  all  except  Cor- 


EAST  BY  WEST  41 

inth,  that  greatest  commercial  town  of  Hellas. 
It  was  the  deliberate  resolve  of  the  Roman  Sen- 
ate to  destroy  Corinth  —  conspicuous  pressure 
from  the  mercantile  party,  no  doubt.  The 
army  entered  the  city  and  all  the  men  left  in 
it  were  put  to  the  sword,  all  the  women  and 
slaves  sold.  Statues,  paintings,  and  valuable 
furniture  having  been  removed  for  sending  to 
Rome,  fire  was  set  to  the  houses  and  the  whole 
city  was  consumed.  Its  trade,  now  Roman 
wholesale,  went  to  the  convenient  small  island 
of  Delos,  which  had  already  drawn  away  a 
great  part  of  the  business  of  Rhodes.  Delos  in 
its  best  days,  active  emporium  of  East  and 
West  traffic,  sold  as  many  as  ten  thousand 
slaves  in  a  day.  From  Syracuse  as  bisector, 
Rome  had  now  well  taken  up  the  two  ends  of 
the  line  from  Corinth  to  Carthage.  The  two 
peoples  that  had  so  long  contended  on  the 
plains  of  Sicily  for  the  dominance  of  the  Medi- 
terranean fell  at  once  before  the  rival  whose 
existence  they  had  then  hardly  recognized. 

ROME  TO  AUGUSTUS 

Rome  had  been  contriving  all  this  manage- 
ment about  the  world,  but  who  was  to  manage 
Rome?  Very  important  question  as  between 
democrats  and  aristocrats,  new  men  and  old 
established  men,  plain  men  and  ornate  men, 
hungry  men  and  well  fed  men,  and  also  as  be- 


42  EAST  BY  WEST 

tween  factions  inside  either  party,  especially 
the  conservative  party.  In  other  words,  Rome 
had  grown  both  so  strong  and  so  weak  that  a 
hundred  years  of  Revolution  must  show  it  the 
way  to  some  sort  of  practical  balance  between 
its  strength  and  its  weakness.  Roman  and 
Italian  problems  were  become  so  acute  that  for 
the  settlement  of  them  the  world  must  be  sub- 
dued. As  regards  the  process,  we  may  be  al- 
lowed to  pass  over  the  Gracchi,  Marius,  Sulla, 
and  many  others,  but  on  our  way  towards  Au- 
gustus, we  are  bound  to  stop  a  little  at  Pompey 
the  Great  and  Julius  Caesar  —  Pompey,  who 
did  such  good  work  in  the  East,  and  Ca;sar, 
whose  great  work  in  the  West  stands  yet.  Cae- 
sar made  Gaul  Roman,  and  so  caused  the  early 
Germans  to  go  about  their  education  in  a  more 
orderly  manner.  Pompey  rid  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea  of  pirates,  and  completed  the  struc- 
ture of  the  Roman  State  in  Asia,  with  its 
feudatory  kings  and  vassals,  its  priests  turned 
princes,  and  its  series  of  free  and  half  free 
cities,  not  unlike  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  of 
the  North.  When  Pompey  left  Asia,  Egypt 
was  the  only  state  of  the  Hellenic  East  that 
was  still  nominally  independent.  Alexandria 
was  very  rich,  and  the  oligarchy  at  Rome  had 
been  long  unwilling  for  any  individual  either 
to  conquer  or  administer  Egypt.  The  Ptole- 
mies  bribed  as  long  as   they  could.     Finally, 


EAST  BY  WEST  43 

the  year  Caesar  moved  on  Britain,  the  Roman 
protectorate  of  Egypt  was  converted  into  a 
direct  military  occupation,  Roman  infantry 
and  troops  of  Mark  Antony's  cavalry  (Ger- 
man and  Celtic)  being  garrisoned  at  Alexan- 
dria. In  brief,  when  we  use  the  words  "  crown," 
"  state,"  "  commonwealth,"  we  mean  some- 
thing ;  and  a  nation  is  not  getting  on  well  unless 
it  understands  the  meaning  of  one  or  another  of 
these  terms.  The  Romans  had  a  good  defini- 
tion once;  then,  after  developments,  they  found 
themselves  compelled  to  agree  on  another  defi- 
nition, and  this,  arrived  at  with  Augustus,  was 
accepted  by  the  world  for  a  long  time.  Is  a 
world-state  possible  under  milder  conditions? 
Dionysius,  the  Areopagite  thought  so,  and  be- 
came a  martyr  for  his  belief.  He  was  in  Egypt 
when  the  people  of  Jerusalem  brought  about 
the  death  of  Jesus  —  and  of  the  remarkable 
eclipse  of  the  sun  he  beheld  at  that  time  is  said 
to  have  declared :  "  Either  the  Divinity  suffers 
or  sympathizes  with  some  suff'erer." 


-h 


THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE 


PAX  ROMANA,  short  of  genuine  peace,  this 
the  gift  to  the  world  of  Augustus  of  the  Julian 
House,  must  have  been  grateful  to  the  world 


44  EAST  BY  WEST 

now  long  drawn  one  way  and  another  by  war. 
In  ships  of  Alexandria,  about  the  year  60, 
when  the  Julian  House  was  tending  to  its  end. 
Saint  Paul  made  his  celebrated  voyage  from  a 
port  in  Asia  Minor  to  Puteoli  and  so  to  Rome. 
Paul  of  Tarsus  in  Cilicia,  "  Roman  bom," 
being  imprisoned  for  his  faith  at  Caesarea,  off 
the  coast  of  Syria,  adduced  his  Roman  citizen- 
ship, appealed  his  case  to  Caesar,  and  was  des- 
patched by  Festus  the  governor  and  Agrippa 
the  king  to  Caesar  (Nero  Claudius  Caesar)  at 
Rome.  Not  until  very  recently  has  the  world 
been  much  at  a  loss  for  time.  In  those  days 
there  was  plenty  of  time,  and  it  is  very  inter- 
esting to  follow  how  a  voyage  was  made  from 
the  coast  of  Syria,  a  little  below  Tyre,  to 
Nero's  Italy.  Embarking  at  Caesarea  in  a  ship 
of  Adramyttium,  (a  place  near  the  |Helles- 
pont),  Paul  with  other  prisoners  set  sail  and 
the  next  day  touched  at  Sidon.  Putting  to  sea 
from  thence,  they  sailed  under  the  lee  of  Cyprus 
on  account  of  contrary  winds.  And  when  they 
had  crossed  the  sea  off  Cilicia  and  Pamphylia, 
they  came  to  Myra,  a  city  of  Lycia.  There  the 
officer  in  command  of  the  prisoners  found  a  ship 
of  Alexandria  bound  for  Italy.  In  this  vessel 
they  sailed  slowly  many  days,  the  winds  being 
bad,  over  against  the  promontory  of  Cnidos 
and  under  the  lee  of  Crete.  With  difficulty 
coasting  along  the  island  of  Crete,  they  came 


EAST  BY  WEST  45 

to  a  place  called  Fair  Havens,  South  coast. 
The  winter  had  now  set  in,  and  Paul  admon- 
ished them  that  by  sailing  further  at  that  time, 
the  ship's  cargo  and  their  lives  would  be  en- 
dangered ;  he  had  had  much  experience  of  the 
sea.  The  military  officer  aboard  listened  rather 
to  the  master  and  the  owner  of  the  ship  than  to 
Paul,  and  it  was  decided  to  sail  for  PhcEnix  and 
winter  there,  a  haven  of  Crete  looking  north 
east  and  south  west.  A  south  wind  blowing 
softly,  they  weighed  anchor  and  sailed  along 
Crete,  close  in  shore.  But  a  tempestuous  wind 
arose,  called  Euraquilo :  the  ship  could  not 
face  this,  made  no  attempt  to  face  it,  and  was 
driven.  After  a  time,  dreading  the  Syrtis  off 
Africa,  they  began  to  throw  freight  overboard. 
Then,  no  stars  nor  sun  shining  upon  them  for 
many  days,  they  lost  all  hope  of  being  saved. 
Paul  reassured  them.  He  was  certain  that  his 
errand  was  to  Rome.  It  was  as  he  said.  On 
the  fourteenth  night  of  the  storm,  the  sailors 
fancied  they  were  drawing  near  to  some  coun- 
try; they  sounded  and  found  twenty  fathoms, 
then  fifteen  fathoms.  When  it  was  day,  not 
knowing  the  land,  they  skillfully  used  the  seas 
to  run  the  ship  aground.  It  was  proposed  to 
kill  the  prisoners,  but  the  centurion  interfered, 
and  all  hands  got  to  shore.  They  had  reached 
the  island  of  Melita  or  Malta.  The  barbarians 
there  showed  them  no  common  kindness,  kind- 


46  EAST  BY  WEST 

ling  a  fire  and  taking  care  of  them.  The  chief 
man  of  the  island,  Publius,  entertained  certain 
of  them  three  days.  After  three  months,  they 
set  sail  in  a  ship  of  Alexandria  the  Castor  mid 
PoUiut:  or  TTvin  Brothers,  which  had  win- 
tered in  the  island.  They  touched  at  Syracuse 
with  the  Castor  and  Pollux,  from  thence 
made  a  circuit  and  arrived  at  Rhegium.  And 
after  one  day  a  south  wind  sprung  up,  and  the 
next  day  they  came  to  Puteoli  —  fast  sailing. 
And  so  to  Rome. 

Puteoli,  in  the  Bay  of  Naples,  chief  port  of 
Italy  under  the  empire,  did  a  great  trade  with 
Africa,  Spain,  Tyre,  but  especially  with  Alex- 
andria for  corn,  and  India  merchandise.  The 
Castor  and  Pollux  was  perhaps  a  corn  ship; 
a  pretty  large  ship  if  it  could  take  on  board 
the  two  hundred  and  seventy-six  of  St.  Paul's 
company.  By  Lucian's  later  description  a 
golden  goose  at  the  stern  was  the  sign  of  a 
corn  ship.  Seneca,  who  may  have  known  Paul, 
says  in  one  of  his  letters,  that  of  all  the  vessels 
coming  into  Puteoli,  the  Alexandria  corn  ships 
were  alone  permitted  to  enter  the  harbor  with 
their  topsail  set.  When  the  Alexandria  ships 
came  in  the  port  was  much  alive.  Seneca  de- 
scribes the  scene  and  draws  from  it  an  apt  com- 
mentary on  life  in  general  —  no  great  advan- 
tage from  hurrying  through,  "  non  est  res 
magna  vivere.^^     As  has  been  observed,  navi- 


EAST  BY  WEST  47 

gation  then  was  not  hurried.  Shipmasters 
seem  to  have  been  wary  of  the  Mediterranean 
from  the  autumnal  equinox  well  into  January. 
The  sea  traffic  of  the  ancients  was  a  coasting 
traffic,  a  dog-barking  navigation  it  is  called 
now,  within  sound  of  the  land  dogs.  Mankind 
learned  its  business  a  good  deal  that  way :  unex- 
pected results  from  small  beginnings  and  keep- 
ing at  it.  Indeed,  coasting  was  about  the  only 
navigation  until  the  discovery  of  America  — 
until  the  geographer  Ptolemy's  ideas  began  to 
work  again.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand 
that  a  dozen  years,  maybe,  before  St.  Paul's 
tedious  voyage  from  Syria  to  Rome,  one  of  the 
most  striking  achievements  of  the  old  naviga- 
tion was  being  made  —  that  is,  the  straight- 
away sailing  from  the  bottom  of  the  Red  Sea 
to  the  Malabar  Coast.  Hippalus,  commander 
of  a  ship  in  the  India  trade,  ventured  thus  to 
make  use  of  the  Western  Monsoon.  By  Pliny's 
end,  (near  Puteoli),  the  route  was  fixed  —  out 
in  midsummer  to  the  Malabar  Coast,  back  in 
December  with  the  Eastern  Monsoon. 

This  Red  Sea  trade,  now  so  thoroughly  or- 
ganized, had  for  a  long  time  been  working 
slowly  to  the  disadvantage  of  one  of  the  main 
old  established  routes  to  the  East,  the  incense 
route,  so  called,  by  Petra  in  Arabia.  In  very 
ancient  times  Gaza  had  been  a  great  station  in 
the  Eastern  or  Arabian  trade,  and  Petra  was 


48  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  place  where  the  Gaza  road  branched  off  to 
Palmyra  and  North  Syria.  Before  Egypt 
made  friends  with  the  sea,  the  eastern  trade  to 
Egypt  was  a  caravan  trade,  following  the  road 
through  Petra,  either  from  Damascus  or  from 
the  Persian  Gulf.  The  road  from  Petra, 
straight  through  the  desert  to  the  Persian  Gulf 
in  the  Gerrha  country,  was  the  principal  road 
making  the  old  fortunes  of  Petra.  Petra,  that 
is  to  say,  had  been  long  a  center  for  all  the 
main  lines  of  traffic  between  East  and  West  — 
through  it,  Egypt  and  the  Western  Mediter- 
ranean had  been  supplied.  Naturally,  the  sea 
route  of  the  Ptolemies  to  Alexandria,  enhanced 
by  the  Romans,  was  a  blow  to  Petra.  Which 
loss  was  somewhat  offset  by  a  sea  trade  to  the 
western  coast  of  Arabia,  at  Leuce  Come,  thence 
by  caravan  to  Petra  and  Rhinocolura  on  the 
Mediterranean  a  little  to  the  west  of  Gaza. 
But  this  device  of  the  Petra  men  did  not  prevent 
the  Eastern  trade  from  going  principally  to 
Alexandria.  The  Nabataeans,  in  whose  country 
Petra  lay,  are  said  to  have  grown  accustomed 
to  piracy  and  ruthless  wrecking  in  regard  to 
ships  coming  up  the  Red  Sea.  For  a  long  time 
Petra  and  the  Nabataeans  flourished.  One  way 
and  another  they  decayed,  and  the  Emperor 
Trajan  in  the  year  105  subverted  the  Kingdom 
of  the  Nabataeans,  a  rather  mysterious  people. 
From  that  time  Palmyra  took  on  new  life  and 


EAST  BY  WEST  49 

grew  until  its  fall,  astoundingly.  It  is  pos- 
sible, also,  to  interpret  the  rise  of  Palmyra 
differently,  to  see  in  Palmyra  nothing  but  the 
transference  of  Petra,  the  Alexandria  trade 
having  always  to  compete  with  some  such  car- 
avan route. 

Another  influence  in  these  shiftings  was  the 
up-coming  of  the  Parthians,  that  vigorous  race 
passing  the  old  Persia  on  to  the  new  Persia. 
The  Parthians,  before  Trajan,  had  damaged 
the  chances  of  the  Nabatjeans  and  encouraged 
Palmyra.  The  Arsacids  of  Parthia,  whose 
course,  (226  b.  c. —  22G  a.  d.),  ran  in  the  pe- 
riod between  the  founding  of  Alexandria  and  the 
founding  of  Constantinople,  were  a  difficult  line 
for  Rome.  Indeed,  the  emergence  of  Parthia 
marks  the  turning  point  in  the  history  of  an- 
tiquity. If  the  Macedonians  of  Syria  had 
maintained  their  grasp  of  the  East,  the  whole 
would  have  come  in  time  under  Rome.  Since 
Alexander,  the  world  had  obeyed  Occidentals 
alone,  but  with  Parthia  shaking  off  the  Seleu- 
cids  and  withstanding  Rome,  the  East  re-en- 
tered the  sphere  of  political  movement:  the 
world  had  two  masters  again.  Looked  at  from 
the  west  a  retrogression  was  thus  started,  lead- 
ing on  to  the  Alhambra  of  Granada  and  the 
great  Mosque  of  Constantinople.  The  attempts 
of  Rome  to  check  the  Arsacids,  the  many  wars 
with  Parthia,  could  not  fail  of  effects  on  the 


50  EAST  BY  WEST 

commerce  of  the  East  to  the  West.  It  was  the 
policy  of  the  Parthia  to  stop  the  direct  inter- 
course between  the  East  and  the  West,  The 
Parthians  granted  passage  to  no  stranger 
through  their  dominions.  The  India  trade  in 
consequence  went  by  Alexandria  as  a  sea  trade ; 
or  was  handled  direct,  and  from  Parthia,  by 
the  merchants  of  Palmyra.  How  much  went 
by  the  Northern  Route  it  would  be  impossible  to 
determine.  As  a  matter  of  fact.  Palmyra 
showed  an  amazing  activity  with  the  decline  of 
Petra  and  the  rise  of  Parthia.  And  the  Baby- 
lon of  the  Parthians,  Seleucia,  grew  to  be  a 
great  trading  town  in  a  state  somewhat  closed. 
Palmyra,  even  more  than  Petra,  was  well 
placed  for  the  caravan  trade.  Its  site,  the  oasis 
Tadmor,  lay  on  the  best  road  from  the  Phoeni- 
cian ports  to  the  East,  considering  the  inhos- 
pitality  of  the  country  beyond  Damascus  going 
east.  The  oasis  Tadmor  was  also  in  the  road 
to  Central  Arabia  by  Petra.  King  Solomon 
had  encouraged  a  Red  Sea  trade,  but  after  him 
it  fell  away  for  centuries,  being  replaced  by  a 
caravan  trade  from  Phoenicia  to  South  Arabia 
and  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  Chaldjean  empire 
shoved  the  central  and  southern  Arabians  for- 
ward, and  Palmyra  was  discovered  by  the 
Arabs  in  command  of  trade  to  Phoenicia  to  be  a 
very  convenient  station.     At  first  a  mere  halt- 


EAST  BY  WEST  61 

ing  place,  the  oasis  grew  into  a  city  as  condi- 
tions changed  and  the  caravans  from  the  Per- 
sian Gulf  stopped  there  more  and  more.  There 
was  no  track  of  road  to  the  east,  but  west  of  the 
oasis  wagon  transportation  was  feasible  after 
the  Roman  highway  appeared.  As  between 
Parthia  and  Rome,  Palmyra  kept  a  trimming 
course,  a  prudent  mercantile  course,  but  Rome 
would  have  no  compromise  in  the  end.  For  near 
two  centuries  Palmyra  was,  from  all  accounts, 
an  extraordinary  place,  more  remarkable  per- 
haps than  Petra,  but  the  two  are  not  to  be 
compared.  Its  trade  was  vastly  profitable. 
The  city  laid  heavy  duties,  export  and  import, 
even  farming  out  the  water  of  its  two  wells. 
Sucessfully  to  plan  and  conduct  a  great  cara- 
van was  held  to  be  a  distinguished  service  to  the 
State.  Hence  numerous  monuments  to  mer- 
chants. Besides  those  on  lesser  streets  there 
were  seven  hundred  and  fifty  such  columns  on 
the  great  central  avenue  beginning  at  the  Tem- 
ple of  the  Sun  and  running  northwest  —  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  monuments  of  rose  white  lime- 
stone, each  fifty  five  feet  high.  We  must  sup- 
pose, says  an  observer  of  the  ruins,  that  this 
and  the  other  pillared  streets  were  shaded  from 
the  fierce  heat  of  the  sun  like  a  modern  bazaar 
—  and  in  some  quarters  the  pillars  seem  to 
have  served  to  support  a  raised  footway  from 


52  EAST  BY  WEST 

which  loungers  could  look  down  at  their  ease  at 
the  creaking  wagons  piled  with  bales  of  silk  or 
purple  wool,  or  heavy  with  Grecian  bronzes 
designed  to  adorn  some  Eastern  palace ;  at  the 
long  strings  of  asses  laden  with  skins  or  ala- 
bastra  of  precious  unguents,  the  swinging  cam- 
els charged  with  olive  oil  from  Palestine  or  with 
grease  and  hides  from  the  Arabian  deserts,  and 
the  motley  crew  of  diverse  nationalities  which 
crowded  the  streets  beneath  —  the  slave  mer- 
chant with  his  wares  from  Egypt  or  Asia 
Minor,  the  Roman  legionary  and  the  half  na- 
ked Saracen,  the  Jewish,  Persian,  and  Arme- 
nian merchants,  the  street  hawkers  of  old 
clothes,  the  petty  hucksters  at  the  corners  of- 
fering roasted  pine  cones,  salt  fish  and  other 
cheap  dainties,  the  tawdry  slave  girls  whose 
shameful  trade  went  to  swell  the  coffers  of  the 
State,  the  noisy  salt  auction  presided  over  by 
an  officer  of  the  customs.  The  production  of 
salt  from  the  deposits  of  the  desert  was  appar- 
ently one  of  the  chief  local  industries ;  and  an- 
other which  could  not  be  lacking  on  the  con- 
fines of  Arabia,  was  the  manufacture  of  leather. 
Thus  prosperous  Palmyra,  until  the  disorgani- 
zation of  Parthia  led  the  rulers  of  the  Palmy- 
renes  to  fancy  that  they  themselves  might  be 
rulers  of  much  of  that  region  of  the  world.  We 
know  the  story  of  Longinus  and  Zenobia,  and 
the    nullifying    of    Palmyra :  —  the    city    de- 


EAST  BY  WEST  63 

strojed  and  the  population  put  to  the  sword. 
Palmyra  gone,  Aleppo  rose,  another  stage  in 
the  progress  to  Byzantium. 

HADRIAN  EMPEROR 

Hardly  anybody  knows  how  little  we  know 
of  the  commerce  of  the  ancients.  We  speak 
lightly  of  strategical  centers  and  routes  of 
trade,  by  the  Red  Sea  and  Alexandria,  by 
Petra,  Palmyra,  and  other  places,  but  when 
Hadrian  was  Emperor  who  is  to  say  in  what 
manner  the  cities  of  the  proper  Asia  were  sup- 
plied by  commerce  from  the  East?  —  five  hun- 
dred populous  cities  there,  "  enriched  with  all 
the  gifts  of  nature  and  adorned  with  all  the 
refinements  of  art."  If  that  many  under  the 
Cjesars,  certainly  as  numerous  under  Hadrian. 
The  many  inventions  of  the  merchants  of  that 
day  we  know  almost  nothing  of.  It  is  mislead- 
ing to  regard  the  Empire  under  Hadrian,  com- 
mercially, as  representative  of  the  Empire  as 
far  as  Constantine ;  but  those  centuries  no 
doubt  were  as  little  changeful  as  any  with  re- 
spect to  commerce,  and  it  is  a  pleasing  fancy  to 
glance  at  the  Empire,  for  trade,  as  if  with  the 
Emperor  Hadrian,  who  was  so  fond  of  traveling 
about  to  see  with  his  own  eyes  what  he  had  read 
of  in  any  part  of  his  dominions,  from  Scotland 
to  Armenia.  For  this  period  and  for  long  be- 
fore and  after  it,  there  is  evidence  enough  that 


54  EAST  BY  WEST 

merchandise  could  be  transported  to  any  good 
market  anywhere,  which  is  no  more  than  saying 
that  there  were  good  markets  everywhere,  with 
all  that  good  markets  imply.  At  the  Far  East, 
then  as  until  very  recently,  almost  the  only  com- 
modity desired  in  trade  with  the  West  was 
money.  But  in  the  articles  of  spices,  silks,  and 
jewels,  to  go  no  farther,  the  Far  East  found  a 
good  market  then  very  far  West.  It  is  only  a 
few  days,  observed  Seneca,  from  Spain  to  India. 
If  you  were  born  under  the  sign  of  Cancer,  you 
should,  they  said,  be  a  merchant,  that  is,  a  trav- 
eler—  for  merchants  had  to  travel  then,  just 
as  in  the  middle  ages  before  the  establishment 
of  a  fixed  postal  service  and  a  settled  security 
of  the  roads.  The  actuating  reasons  were  a 
little  different.  Merchants  of  Imperial  Rome 
found  their  way  ready  paved  for  them  to  the 
three  continents,  and  they  could  take  shipping 
hither  and  yon.  There  was  the  Via  Appia  east 
to  the  Via  Egnatia,  Macedon,  Thrace  and  By- 
zantium ;  there  was  the  Via  Appia  south  to  the 
Messana  ferry,  Sicily,  Africa,  and  the  coast 
road  to  Spain ;  there  was  the  Via  Flaminia, 
north,  and  the  Via  Aurelia  west  to  Gaul.  At 
Puteoli  has  been  dug  up  the  grave  stone  of  Ga- 
ius  Octavius  Agathopus,  merchant  of  Imperial 
Rome:  —  "After  weary  journeys  from  Orient 
to  Occident,  here  rests."  And  the  tomb  of  a 
merchant  of  Hierapolis  in  Phrygia  shows  by 


EAST  BY  WEST  55 

the  inscription  that  he  "had  sailed  seventy-two 
times  round  Cape  Malea  to  Italy."  There  was 
a  sort  of  poetical  encyclopaedia  written  during 
Hadrian's  time.  The  author  sets  it  down  that 
he  was  no  merchant,  no  voyager,  and  had  never 
crossed  the  Indian  Sea  to  the  Ganges,  as  so 
many  had  done  who  set  their  lives  at  stake  for 
riches.  Rome  had  once  made  laws  against  its 
aristocracy  being  in  trade.  As  Rome  grew  to 
be  the  world  such  laws  could  hardly  hold.  Peo- 
ple of  all  ranks  took  a  profit  when  and  where 
they  could.  But  the  strictly  Roman  attitude 
was  throughout  a  good  deal  scornful  of  trade. 
The  governing  class,  that  is  to  say,  liked  to  see 
traffic  going  forward  under  its  political  direc- 
tion. Political  economy  may  not  have  been 
clearly  understood  as  a  science  for  the  good  of 
the  greatest  number.  Rome  was  there  to  gov- 
ern the  world,  and  the  world's  work  must  some- 
how settle  the  costs.  But  if  commerce  was  ev- 
erywhere known  to  be  a  support  of  the  Empire, 
here  and  there  it  was  extremely  respectable,  as 
at  Alexandria,  "  where  only  snow  was  not  to  be 
had."  Ships  of  Alexandria  were  in  every  ha- 
ven, in  the  Indian  Ocean,  in  the  Black  Sea,  off 
Cornwall.  Descendants  of  the  old  Phoenicians, 
"  Syrian  merchants,"  were  in  every  likely  coun- 
try. Tyre  and  Carthage  were  great  commer- 
cial towns  again  under  the  Empire.  What 
those  towns  had  worked  for  during  centuries 


56  EAST  BY  WEST 

had  come  to  pass  —  East  and  West  were  one 
sure  market.  But  Carthage  and  Tyre  were 
merely  factors  in  its  management.  Carthage, 
still  with  three  hundred  African  cities  behind  it, 
would  have  been  pleased  to  have  the  political 
direction  of  the  magnificent  grazing  estates  of 
Gaul  under  the  Empire,  the  cities  of  Gaul,  the 
three  hundred  and  sixty  cities  of  Spain ;  or  the 
political  direction  of  such  a  place  as  Aquileia, 
(near  Venice  that  is),  the  staple  for  the  through 
traffic  from  the  northeast  to  Italy  and  Africa; 
or  the  political  direction  of  the  bestowal  about 
the  world  of  the  stewpans  of  Publius  Cipius 
Polybus,  so  many  of  which  have  been  found  at 
diverse  places  in  the  North.  Animula,  vagula, 
blandula, —  quae  nunc  abibis  in  loca?  Ha- 
drian's question  is  applicable  as  well  to  the 
spirit  of  commerce  and  the  life  of  nations. 

CONSTANTINE  AND  HIS  CAPITAL 

The  Emperor  Hadrian  spent  the  winter  of 
the  year  119-120  in  Britain.  He  had  his  head- 
quarters at  York,  whence  he  surveyed  the  prov- 
inces. With  him  was  his  wife  Sabina,  whose 
presence  would  be  fair  proof,  if  other  evidence 
was  lacking,  that  York  was  then  reached  by  the 
India  trade,  through  Londinium,  no  doubt,  that 
rising  town  on  the  Thames.  Hadrian  in  Brit- 
ain —  the  Romans  in  Britain ;  seven  volumes  on 
the    Empire,    according    to    the    author,    are 


EAST  BY  WEST  57 

"  bodied  in  epitome  by  what  remains  of  Ha- 
drian's Wall."  For  himself,  said  Merivale,  he 
felt  that  all  that  he  had  read  and  written  on  this 
wide  and  varied  subject  was  condensed,  as  it 
were,  in  the  picture  he  realized  from  a  few 
stones  and  earthworks  of  the  Roman  occupa- 
tion of  the  British  marches.  Along  that  north- 
ern wall,  Gauls  and  Germans,  Thracians  and 
Iberians,  Moors  and  Syrians,  to  mention  no 
others,  held  the  frontiers  of  the  Empire.  They 
got  their  orders  in  Latin.  Juvenal  spoke  of 
that  time  very  sharply,  and  gives  us  to  under- 
stand that  Rome  itself  was  then  more  Greek 
and  Semitic  than  Roman.  The  complications 
of  a  world  State  are  necessarily  many.  Races 
persist,  and  nation-making  is  a  pursuit  that 
both  ambition  and  duty  like  to  follow.  Mere 
chance  enters  into  the  account,  and  inexplicably 
pariahs  grow  into  bosses.  But  chiefly,  as  the 
world  goes,  it  looks  as  if  the  East  was  the  East. 
And  for  a  long  time  there  has  been  the  added 
trouble  that  the  West  has  been  making  itself. 
When  Constantine  came  out  to  York,  (his  jour- 
ney so  swift  from  Xicomedia  near  Byzantium, 
by  way  of  Boulogne),  he  knew  very  well  what  a 
difficult  task  it  should  be  to  keep  the  East  and 
the  West  together.  The  structure  of  the  Em- 
pire had  begun  to  crack  long  before.  The  phil- 
osophy of  Marcus  Aurelius  was  doubtless  given 
a  complexion  by  the  thoughts  he  must  have  had 


58  EAST  BY  WEST 

among  the  Quadi  by  the  Gran  —  what  destiny 
had  these  people  in  the  world,  and  how  should 
Rome  fare  with  them  so  stubborn?  Questions 
recurrent  over  and  over  again,  the  best  answer 
after  Marcus  Aurelius  being  to  educate  the 
North,  bring  it  into  the  polity,  but  that  was  no 
simple  program  even  for  Diocletian.  Problem 
also  in  the  East,  with  regard  to  a  new  Persia. 
The  Emperor  Valerian,  and  the  Emperor  Aure- 
lian,  {restitutor  orbis,  effacer  of  Palmyra), 
had  found  the  new  Persia  of  the  Sassanids  too 
much  for  them.  Problem  also  in  the  new  re- 
ligion, new-modelling  wherever  genuine  and  gen- 
uine in  many  quarters.  Could  one  man,  even 
bolstered  to  a  divinity  as  Emperor,  or  could  a 
committee  of  emperors,  keep  control  of  all  the 
provinces  from  York  to  the  Oasis  of  Tadmor, 
and  North  to  South,  from  the  Danube  to  the 
Great  African  Desert?  As  for  a  committee  of 
Emperors,  Constantine  found  it  in  the  circum- 
stances impracticable.  He  got  the  power  to 
himself,  and  then  carried  through  his  plan  of 
removing  the  focus  of  his  power  to  the  East, 
hitting  upon  Byzantium  as  a  capital  for  the 
world,  Byzantium  on  the  Thracian  Bosporus 
which  lo  swam. 

The  Balkan  States  have  produced  many  con- 
siderable men.  For  instance,  Alexander  the 
Great,  Diocletian,  and  Constantine.  These 
men,  with  a  keen  eye  for  the  world  and  much 


EAST  BY  WEST  59 

conversant  with  it,  looked  especially  to  the 
East.  By  Diocletian's  scheme  for  administer- 
ing the  world,  whether  from  pride  or  policy,  he 
himself  withdrew  from  Rome,  and  established 
the  seat  of  his  own  particular  government  at 
Nicomedia  near  the  Hellespont.  He,  the 
greater  Emperor,  chose  the  East,  leaving  the 
West  to  his  colleague,  and  Rome  insensibly  be- 
came confounded  with  the  dependencies  of  the 
West.  Constantine,  at  the  first  Emperor  of 
the  West,  then  Emperor  of  the  World,  resolved 
to  govern  from  the  East.  "  Born  not  far  from 
the  Danube,  educated  in  the  courts  and  armies 
of  Asia,  invested  with  the  purple  by  the  legions 
of  Britain,"  Constantine  looked  with  cold  indif- 
ference upon  Rome.  He  would  found  a  new 
Rome,  little  distant  from  Tro}',  parent  of 
Rome.  In  forcing  the  Hellespont,  on  his  way 
to  supreme  power,  Constantine  had  observed 
Byzantium  closely.  There,  year  330,  Month 
of  May,  he  solemnly  inaugurated  his  new  capi- 
tal, Constantinopolis,  dedicated  to  the  Virgin 
Mary.  Persia,  still  an  enemy,  had  centuries 
before  cast  a  bridge  below  this  spot  to  over- 
whelm the  West,  but  the  West  had  furnished 
Alexander  to  check  Persia.  Since  then  the 
West  had  changed ;  Rome  had  gone  out  into  all 
the  earth,  but  in  a  sense  had  done  no  more  than 
take  over  the  work  of  Alexander,  affording 
Hellenism    its    development.     Who    had    made 


60  EAST  BY  WEST 

Asia-cum-Egypt  politically  Greek,  and  whose 
power  had  kept  it  Greek?  Now  the  world  had 
found  its  capital  again  where  had  been  an  old 
Greek  colony,  looking  more  East  than  West. 
The  West  was  still  in  the  making,  and  the  East 
was  the  East.  Immediately  upon  the  founding 
of  Constantinople,  struggle  began  as  to  whether 
it  should  be  a  Greek  or  a  Latin  city.  We 
know  which  party  won. 

Seven-hilled  Byzantium  upon  its  gently  slop- 
ing promontory  which  serves  as  a  connecting 
link  between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western 
world,  a  spot  meant  by  nature  as  it  seems  for 
the  center  of  a  great  monarchy,  passed  to  Con- 
stantinople, very  early  a  magnificient  commun- 
ity. "  Whatever  rude  commodities  were  col- 
lected in  the  forests  of  Germany  and  Scythia, 
as  far  as  the  sources  of  the  Tanais  and  the 
Borysthenes,  whatever  was  manufactured  by 
the  skill  of  Europe  or  Asia,  the  corn  of  Egypt 
and  the  gems  and  spices  of  the  farthest  east," 
were  brought  by  the  varying  winds  into  this 
port  —  from  the  Black  Sea,  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Commercially  the  fortunes  of  Con- 
stantinople were  at  once  assured,  because  the 
Roman  world  could  show  no  better  site  for  a 
trading  town.  Commerce  was  much  despised 
by  the  Romans  —  they  suffered  in  the  end  from 
those  prejudices.  The  Greeks  of  the  Empire 
regarded  trade  more  favorably.     Since  the  be- 


EAST  BY  WEST  61 

ginning  of  the  third  century  they  had  been 
dominant  in  the  East  again,  as  administrators 
under  Rome.  The  remains  of  the  Macedonian 
and  Greek  colonies  in  Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  and 
Syria  doubtless  composed  the  most  important 
body  of  citizens  in  the  empire  of  Constantine. 
Everywhere  they  held  themselves  apart  from 
the  more  native  populations.  Antioch  and  Al- 
exandria had  been  their  emporia.  Without 
attributing  a  perfect  statesmanship  to  Con- 
stantine —  statesman  enough  as  organizer  of 
a  civil  service  quite  distinct  from  the  profes- 
sions of  arms  and  the  priesthood  —  we  may 
suppose  that  he  desired  for  his  city  not  only  a 
place  in  the  sun  of  the  world's  politics,  but  the 
control  of  the  world's  commerce  besides. 
Granting  Constantine  a  contempt  of  trade 
personally,  he  knew  the  Danube  country  and  the 
importance  of  the  Black  Sea  commerce  in  all  its 
phases.  Alexandria  was  much  in  that  trade. 
Corinth  risen  again,  now  both  prosperous  and 
miserable,  w^as  largely  in  the  Black  Sea  trade. 
Why  should  not  Constantinople  be  great  in  the 
Black  Sea,  greater  than  any  city  had  been, 
and  draw  to  itself  as  well  much  trade  from  the 
rest  of  the  world?  At  least,  the  event  was  so. 
Antioch,  half  way  from  Alexandria  to  the  new 
capital,  declined  on  the  establishment  of  Con- 
stantinople. Smyrna  the  silk  market,  declined. 
From  the  fall  of  Petra  to  the  rise  of  Constan- 


62  EAST  BY  WEST 

tinople  we  may  trace  a  more  northward  thrust 
for  the  caravan  trade  from  the  Southeast. 
Constantine  died  at  odds  with  Persia.  From 
the  standpoint  of  traffic,  the  founding  of  his 
city  marks  the  period  when  the  carrying  trade 
of  the  West  was  again  falling  into  the  hands  of 
the  Greeks,  and  when  the  Greeks  were  becoming 
very  active  again  in  trade  to  the  Black  Sea  — 
and  beyond,  to  Armenia,  India,  Arabia,  Ethio- 
pia, and  even  as  far  as  Ceylon.  Greek  traders 
and  missionaries  were  going  where  no  Roman 
had  ever  been,  in  Africa  and  not  only  there. 

FROxM  CONSTANTINE  TO  HERACLIUS 

How  should  the  case  be  put  in  brief  for  the 
three  centuries  from  the  death  of  Constantine 
to  the  death  of  Heraclius?  During  that  inter- 
val Romania  went  greatly  down  in  the  West; 
and  also  Romania  in  the  East  fell  away.  Ro- 
mans in  the  one  quarter,  Greeks  in  the  other, 
with  powerful  excuses  to  be  sure,  destroyed 
themselves.  Both  East  and  West,  the  govern- 
ing class,  fated,  could  not  understand.  The 
world  was  not  standing  still,  and  there  M^ere  few 
people  of  the  old  order  to  direct  the  course  of 
it.  Theodosius  of  the  Christian  faith,  last  Em- 
peror of  the  Mediterranean  countries,  was  pa- 
tron of  Alaric  the  Arian  Visigoth  who  declared 
he  was  driven  by  a  voice  he  could  not  withstand 
to    undo    the   work    of    Theodosius.     Genseric, 


EAST  BY  WEST  63 

Arian  Vandal,  sailed  out  of  Carthage  for  the 
North,  "  against  whomsoever  God's  anger  was 
directed.'*  The  pagan  Attila,  a  most  terribly 
serious  man,  failed  only  by  a  miracle  it  was  said 
(at  the  Battle  of  the  Marne)  in  imposing  his 
rule  upon  the  Roman  West.  A  thousand  years 
before  the  Turk  came  into  Constantinople,  At- 
tila, only  Emperor  of  all  the  North, —  Slav, 
Teuton,  and  the  rest, —  founder  of  Venice  as 
destroyer  of  Aquileia,  had  been  kept  out  of 
Rome  by  the  merest  chance.  We  cannot  say 
what  impelled  Attila,  nor  Odoacer  bidden  by  the 
saint  of  Noricum  "  Fare  onward  into  Italy." 
And  it  is  a  question,  even  giving  Odoacer  and 
Theodoric  their  just  dues,  how  Rome  was  en- 
abled to  pass  to  Justinian  in  any  way  Roman. 
Nor  is  it  clear  how  Constantinople  and  the 
nearer  east  were  preserved  so  long  from  the 
overtumings  of  a  different  race, —  until  the 
West  had  been  to  school  again  and  learned  an- 
other way  about.  Commercially^,  the  son  of 
Theodosius  who  received  the  East  had  a  good 
heritage,  to  say  nothing  of  any  parts  of  it  but 
Constantinople,  north,  and  Alexandria,  south. 
The  Black  Sea  trade,  the  Danube  trade,  trade 
of  Asia  Minor  and  the  Aegean,  so  much  for 
Constantinople;  and  as  for  Alexandria,  that 
city  flourished  by  its  old  traffic  until  the  Sara- 
cen made  a  new  dispensation.  But  Sassanian 
Persia,  symbolized  by   Bahram   that  wild  ass, 


64.  EAST  BY  WEST 

was  the  first  enemy  of  Constantinople,  and  be- 
fore the  Saracen  appeared,  compact,  Persia 
had  been  cutting  more  and  more  away  from  the 
Roman  Emperors  of  the  East.  Justinian's 
brilliancies,  every  way,  had  been  very  costly. 
Heraclius,  who  was  to  show  himself  so  great  a 
military  strategist,  in  the  six  years  after  he 
came  to  the  throne  saw  Persia  overrun  Syria, 
Palestine,  Egypt  and  Asia  Minor.  Hard 
pressed  to  the  North  as  well,  Heraclius  found  a 
modus  Vivendi  in  the  Balkans,  and  then  turned 
upon  Chosroes  of  Persia,  whom  he  extinguished. 
As  with  the  Achasmenids,  so  with  the  Sassanids, 
their  last  end  was  one  of  considerable  ambitions 
and  great  futilities.  Darius  scorned  the 
Greeks ;  so  did  Chosroes  and  Yazdegerd.  The 
times  were  different  now.  There  was  to  be  no 
longer  struggle  between  Greek  and  Persian. 
The  East  had  produced  something  new  in  the 
world  —  a  United  States  of  Arabia,  wild  tribes, 
in  the  estimation  of  both  Persian  and  Greek 
mere  "  lizard  eaters,"  but  of  a  force  sufficient  in 
one  and  the  same  year  640  to  gain  a  victory  of 
victories  over  Yazdegerd,  and  to  remove  Alex- 
andria finally  from  among  the  possessions  of 
Heraclius  and  the  Greeks. 

THE  WEST  AND  THE  EAST 

The     West     had     long     been     disorganized. 
Where  there  are  people  there  will  be  trade,  and 


EAST  BY  WEST  65 

there  was  trade  in  the  West  of  course.  But 
ordered  commerce  in  the  warehouse  fashion 
must  for  an  age  have  found  its  main  depots  in 
the  Eastern  Empire.  Constantine  had  created 
a  civil  service  —  a  highly  efficient  bureaucracy 
for  governing,  each  department  of  the  State's 
business  a  separate  profession.  This  new  sys- 
tem, to  last  at  Constantinople  so  long,  was  from 
the  first  in  direct  opposition  to  the  people. 
The  trader,  for  example,  was  not  counted  of 
the  state,  except  for  purposes  of  mulcting. 
Commerce,  notwithstanding  went  on, —  and 
prosperously  enough  for  the  court  itself,  with 
its  customs  immunities,  to  indulge  now  and 
then.  The  Eastern  empire  was  rich.  If  it  had 
not  been  rich  it  could  not  have  subsisted. 
There  was  capital  in  the  East.  There  were 
mines  and  manufactures  in  the  East.  Large 
commercial  affairs  were  transacted  from  the 
East ;  naval  supremacy  and  a  mercantile  mar- 
ine were  there.  From  Constantine  to  Herac- 
lius,  if  the  West  was  growing  to  be  less  and 
less  of  an  expensive  market,  the  Greeks  con- 
trived to  supply  what  market  there  was,  and 
nearer  home  their  market  was  very  good.  The 
political  control  of  the  world  had  greatly 
shifted  since  Hadrian's  visitations,  at  which 
time  there  was  no  lack  in  Britain  and  on  the 
Rhine  of  all  the  luxuries  of  the  East  —  Aegean 
vintages  and  cloths,  perfumes,  spices,  and  jew- 


66  EAST  BY  WEST 

els  of  India,  ivory  and  slaves  of  Africa,  silks  of 
China,  objects  of  art  in  marbles,  metals,  paint- 
ings, and  earthenware.  Changed  conditions 
brought  impoverishment  to  the  West,  and  un- 
der Justinian,  where  there  had  been  luxury, 
there  was  hardly  a  sufficiency  of  the  rudest 
commodities.  Until  long  after  Justinian, 
despite  of  Persia,  the  management  and  political 
control  of  the  world's  commerce  had  lain  with 
Constantinople.  Persia  in  the  way,  Justinian 
had  been  forced  to  a  measure  of  vast  conse- 
quence to  the  Greeks,  as  the  event  was  with  the 
coming  of  the  Saracens.  Persia,  (like  Parthia 
when  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  "  Emperor  An-Tun," 
had  sent  his  envoys  to  China),  stood  a  bar  to 
the  trade  in  silk.  Justinian,  in  alliance  with 
Elesboas,  Christian  King  of  Abyssinia, 
attempted  first  to  turn  the  silk  trade  from  Per- 
sia to  a  route  by  the  Red  Sea.  This  was  not 
feasible.  Then  Justinian  was  approached  by 
two  monks  who  had  been  in  China.  They 
brought  with  them  to  the  audience  silk  worms 
in  a  cane,  and  a  practical  acquaintance  with  the 
rearing  of  them.  The  Emj>eror  was  pleased, 
and  by  the  introduction  of  the  silk  worm  which 
followed,  secured  to  the  Greeks  a  thorough 
control  of  the  trade  in  silk,  cutting  out  the 
middlemen  of  Persia.  Here  was  advantage- 
ment  to  the  Greeks  against  an  uneasy  time  — 
when  the  Saracen  had  taken  over  Persia  and 


EAST  BY  WEST  67 

much  besides.  But  Justinian  had  gone  far 
afield,  his  ideas  and  accomphshments  had  in- 
volved great  outlays.  To  recoA'er,  he  devised 
a  system  of  monopolies  which  ultimately  drove 
the  trade  of  the  Empire  into  other  hands.  The 
conquests  of  Justinian  in  ItaW  were  long 
retained.  The  people  of  Rome,  Genoa,  Venice, 
Naples,  Amalfi,  clung  to  the  Empire  when  they 
might  have  been  independent.  They  looked 
East,  and  had  not  the  capital  to  carry  on  trade 
with  the  East  without  assistance.  Their 
return  cargoes  were  largely  slaves  from  the 
North  and  other  raw  materials.  By  degrees 
Amalfi  and  Venice  got  a  fund  of  capital.  Jus- 
tinian's monopolies,  from  being  distasteful  to 
them  grew  alluring.  Useful  to  the  Empire, 
their  vessels  had  been  allowed  to  carry  arms. 
They  began  to  break  the  customs'  laws  and  fin- 
ally drew  away  from  all  allegiance.  So  with 
Justinian  and  Heraclius  there  were  consider- 
able changes  started  in  the  course  of  trade. 
The  Arabs  coming  up  so  suddenly  —  the 
Imperial  wars  with  Persia  had  opened  their 
eyes  —  and  getting  to  the  coast  around  so 
much  of  the  Mediterranean,  gave  Constanti- 
nople and  the  Greeks  a  severe  jolt.  The  Greeks 
missed  the  ruling  of  Egypt  and  North  Africa. 
The  Arabs  found  a  numerous  maritime  popula- 
tion there  and  in  Syria,  but  they  did  not  form 
a  maritime  power  in  the  West.     The  Constan- 


68  EAST  BY  WEST 

tinopolitans  remained  masters  of  the  sea,  and 
they  still  possessed  the  greater  share  of  the 
commerce  they  had  had  in  the  Mediterranean. 
Being  carriers,  they  still  controlled  the  India 
trade,  although  not  politically;  and  the  North- 
ern route  by  the  Black  Sea  had  not  been  inter- 
fered with.  The  fur  trade  and  the  India  trade 
of  the  Black  Sea  was  of  vast  importance  to  the 
Greeks,  and  of  vast  importance  to  the  peoples 
settled  North  and  Northwest  of  the  Black  Sea. 
Constantine's  city  schooled  much  of  the  North, 
and  many  of  the  Italian  towns,  and  was  there 
to  show  the  Saracen  that  Rome  was  not  yet 
dead. 

LEO  THE  ICONOCLAST 

After  Heraclius  it  was  not  long  until  the 
Roman  Empire  in  the  East  disappeared,  tech- 
nically. The  crescent  seemed  already  to  be 
departing  from  the  Romans  of  Byzantium. 
With  the  second  Justianian,  last  of  the  family 
of  Heraclius,  we  close  the  era  begun  with  Con- 
stantine  founder  of  the  new  Rome.  Techni- 
cally, there  had  been  no  break  with  the  West, 
even  in  the  year  476-  Then,  so  the  interpre- 
tation was,  the  West  had  been  merged  again  in 
the  general  empire  as  under  Diocletian.  So 
late  as  Charlemagne  the  West  made  fine  points 
in  setting  up  title  to  its  own  Empire.  But 
when  Charles  Martel  was  establishing  the  Frank 


EAST  BY  WEST  69 

dynasty,  it  was  not  a  season  for  nice  questions 
of  the  law  of  the  crown  at  Constantinople. 

Leo  III,  reorganizer  of  the  Eastern  Empire, 
and  first  of  the  strictly  Byzantine  sovereigns, 
had  to  employ  all  his  skill  not  only  to  pre- 
serve the  terrain  of  Constantinople,  but  to  save 
Europe  from  the  waxing  Arab.  Leo  the  Icon- 
oclast was  indeed  of  a  constructive  genius. 
When  he  came  into  power  in  the  year  716,  the 
Bulgarians  and  Sclavonians  were  wasting  on 
the  European  side  up  to  the  walls  of  Con- 
stantinople: the  Saracens  were  ravaging  the 
whole  of  Asia  Minor  to  the  Bosphorus.  The 
Saracen  Empire  had  now  reached  its  greatest 
compass.  From  the  banks  of  the  Indus  to 
the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  in  Mauretania  and 
Spain,  the  orders  of  the  Caliph  Solyman  were 
obeyed  without  cavil.  Solyman  judged  the 
time  fit  to  do  away  with  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. With  a  fleet  of  eighteen  hundred  vessels, 
counting  transports,  and  a  large  army,  he 
besieged  and  blockaded  Constantinople.  He 
threw  his  army  across  the  Hellespont,  to  invest 
the  city ;  his  fleet  was  stationed  for  blockade, 
both  from  the  Aegean  and  the  Black  Sea.  Leo 
utilized  the  current  from  the  Black  Sea  for 
sending  down  fire  ships ;  assault  he  repelled 
with  Greek  fire  and  his  heavy  artillery.  There 
are  romantic  stories  of  grea^.  burning  glasses 
used  against  the  Saracen  fleet,  and  the  Greeks 


70  EAST  BY  WEST 

were  held  to  know  how  to  employ  fire  under 
water.  It  is  the  truth  that  Leo's  corps  of 
engineers  were  practiced  in  every  art  of  fort- 
ress defense,  mechanical  and  chymical,  devised 
by  the  Romans.  Capricious  fortune  worked 
for  the  city,  but  the  saving  of  it  was  a  great 
achievement  by  which  Leo  averted  a  worse  rev- 
olution from  Europe.  A  capital  historian 
ascribes  to  him  the  inauguration  of  a  new  era 
for  the  World.  Gross  proof  of  the  assertion 
may  be  drawn  from  the  fact  that  during  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries  the  commerce  of 
Europe  centered  at  Constantinople  more  fully 
than  it  has  since  done  in  any  one  place.  In 
view  of  the  state  of  the  West  in  the  time  of  Leo, 
and  in  view  of  conditions  to  the  East  when  he 
came  to  the  throne,  his  reforms,  military,  fiscal, 
legal,  and  ecclesiastical,  must  have  been  wise 
to  assure,  as  they  did,  so  long  a  tenure  of  life 
to  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Leo  was  a  puritan 
and  a  dealer  of  justice.  His  people  at  large, 
and  traders  especially,  were  glad  of  a  firm  hand 
at  last.  The  Saracen  had  found  encourage- 
ment because  of  the  fiscal  rapacities  of  Constan- 
tinople. It  was  apparent  now  what  Roman 
law  could  be,  and  Mohammedanism  was  stayed. 
The  tone  of  society  in  the  Byzantine  Empire 
was  high  as  compared  with  what  went  on  among 
the  Franks  and  the  Saracens.  But  that  was 
no  golden  age.      Constantinople  was  the  center, 


EAST  BY  WEST  71 

Cherson  (in  the  Crimea)  and  Ravenna  were 
great  stations,  of  the  India  trade,  and  slaves 
then  constituted  the  principal  article  of  Euro- 
pean export  to  Africa,  Syria,  and  Egypt,  in 
payment  of  produce  of  the  East  coming  by 
those  channels.  The  great  Plague  of  745  was 
spread  in  Christian  countries  wherever  com- 
merce went,  supposed  to  have  been  introduced 
by  Venetian  and  Greek  ships  plying  the  con- 
traband trade  in  slaves  with  the  Mohammedan 
nations.  The  Greek  navy,  both  for  commerce 
and  war,  was  then  the  most  numerous  in  exis- 
tence, and  by  this  plague  the  Hellenic  race  was 
threatened  with  extermination.  New  settlers 
followed  the  plague,  and  it  looked  as  if  Greece 
of  the  Byzantine  territory  was  to  be  quite 
Sclavonian.  But  the  Iconoclasts  ruled.  They 
subdued  the  Sclavonians,  made  them,  as  it  is 
termed,  know  their  place;  and  at  the  end  of 
their  time  they  put  a  veto  on  the  plundering 
Russians  as  well.  The  Iconoclastic  Emperors 
were,  here  and  there,  statesmen  all  round  — 
not  like  Charlemagne  who  discouraged  foreign 
commerce,  understanding,  doubtless,  his  own 
ground. 

THE  NEW  WEST 

After  the  decay  of  Rome,  the  new  Europe 
was  long  enough  in  finding  itself.  But  as  with 
the  old  Europe  the  Mediterranean  was  its  chief 


72  EAST  BY  WEST 

school.  Rome,  that  is  the  old  Europe,  had 
grown  slowly  in  the  Mediterranean.  Coming 
to  a  control  of  that  sea,  Rome  very  soon  began 
disintegration.  The  Roman  method  was  then 
applied  from  Constantinople,  in  which  region 
conditions  were  more  favorable.  The  Saracen 
emerging,  and  the  West  in  a  welter,  Roman 
method  was  forced  to  apply  itself  within  a  nar- 
rower and  narrower  range.  But  Constanti- 
nople was  well  situated ;  there  was  efficiency 
and  order  there,  and  the  use  of  its  resources 
enabled  it  to  be  the  world's  great  city  long  after 
its  territory  was  diminished.  Its  wealth  and 
its  conservative  Roman  method  were  in  many 
ways  to  its  advantage,  while  the  new  Europe 
was  schooling  and  the  Saracen  showing  himself 
incapable.  Except  at  Cordova  the  Ommiad 
line  went  out,  shortly  after  Solyman's  block- 
ade of  Constantinople,  and  the  extremely  clever 
Abbasids  soon  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Turk, 
better  Mohammedan  than  themselves.  The 
Arabs  had  been  traders  from  an  old  time  — 
Gerrha  men  —  Koreishites  with  their  camels 
from  Yemen  by  Mecca  to  Syria ;  —  after 
Mohammed,  everywhere  in  the  East,  and  far 
West,  diffusing  languages,  money,  Indian  num- 
erals. Constantinople,  nevertheless,  was  the 
new  Europe's  city  of  commerce  far  into  the 
second  Mediterranean  era.  There  were 
Mohammedan  laws   against  loans   at  interest. 


EAST  BY  WEST  73 

The  early  Abbasids, —  who  at  their  beginning 
founded  Bassora  to  hurt  Persia  —  closed  the 
Nile-Suez  canal  in  order  to  bolster  Bagdad, 
thus  ruining  the  India  trade  to  Egypt.  The 
Abbasids  of  Bagdad  were  at  odds  with  the 
Ommiads  of  Cordova.  These  things  furthered 
the  business  of  Constantinople,  and  besides,  the 
Northern  route  by  the  Black  Sea  was  in  that 
city's  control,  outside  the  reach  of  the  Saracen. 
The  West,  with  all  the  elements  of  strength,  was 
pretty  miserable  until  the  eleventh  century  when 
a  reform  spirit  began  working.  Constanti- 
nople must  have  been  the  real  capital  of  the 
Mediterranean  world  until  well  into  the  eleventh 
century.  The  city  was  great  minded  and  small 
minded,  powerful  and  weak.  The  eighth  cen- 
tury had  been  a  period  of  wholesome  activity  in 
its  general  life:  The  ninth  and  tenth  centuries 
were  stationary,  and  after  them  —  sure  decline, 
the  West  having  been  anything  but  stationary. 
The  wealth  and  laws  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
placed  ample  capital  in  the  hands  of  the  Greek 
traders.  The  silk  manufacture  was  to  Thebes 
and  Argos  what  the  cotton  manufacture  has 
been  to  Lancashire.  Monemvasia  in  the  Morea 
was  a  trading  town  after  the  manner  of  Venice 
later  on.  The  slave  trade,  if  not  vast,  meant  a 
great  deal  to  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Yet  there 
was  little  of  opportunity  in  the  Byzantine  Em- 
pire.    Its  "  period  of  power  and  glory,"  under 


74  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  Macedonian  dynasty,  was  when  taxation  was 
very  high,  absorbing  great  part  of  the  profits 
of  industry.  Absolutism  was  become  plain. 
Each  generation  moved  exactly  within  the  lim- 
its of  that  which  had  preceded  it.  Caste  was 
formed.  There  was  no  opening  for  new  enter- 
prise. Positive  decline  was  imminent,  and  be- 
gan immediately  the  Italians  could  avail  them- 
selves of  the  natural  resources  of  their  region. 
Amalfi,  Pisa,  Genoa,  and  Venice,  forced  to  as- 
sert themselves,  became  first  the  rivals  and  then 
the  superiors  of  the  Greeks  in  commerce,  indus- 
try, and  wealth. 

THE  COMING  OF  VENICE 

In  the  labyrinth  of  Italy  for  two  centuries 
after  Charlemagne,  it  is  not  well  to  attempt  a 
way  unless  much  leisure  is  at  command.  Ven- 
ice, it  is  said,  its  seat  of  government  trans- 
ferred to  the  Rialto  the  year  Charlemagne  died, 
began  then  its  glorious  career.  Of  all  the  trad- 
ing towns  of  Italy,  Venice  came  best  through 
the  hard  times  of  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries, 
and  so  was  best  able  to  gain  advantage  from 
the  great  material  changes  for  the  better  in 
Italy  beginning  with  the  tenth  century.  In  close 
touch  with  Constantinople,  lying  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Germany,  (a  surer  market  after  the 
checking  of  the  Magyar  in  955),  at  the  sea  end 
of   an    intricate    system    of   inland   waterways, 


EAST  BY  WEST  76 

Venice  offered  an  indispensable  channel  of  com- 
munication between  Greeks  and  Saracens, 
Northern  Italy,  Germany,  and  the  West.  How 
weighty  an  item  in  the  Venetian  commerce  of 
a  year  must  have  been  the  business  arising  from 
the  caravan  of  forty  thousand  horse  from  Hun- 
gary, Croatia,  and  Eastern  Germany  to  fetch 
salt  of  Venice  from  Istria.  As  early  as  Theo- 
doric,  his  minister  Cassiodorus  wrote  to  the 
Venetians :  — "  All  your  rivalry  is  expended  on 
your  salt  works ;  in  place  of  plows  and  sickles 
you  turn  your  frying  pans.  You  own  many 
and  many  a  ship,  your  vessels  fear  not  the 
stormy  winds."  When  Constantinople  was 
headquarters  for  the  commerce  of  the  more 
Western  world,  it  was  no  small  advantage  for  a 
trading  town  of  Italy  to  face  the  Adriatic,  and 
Venice,  from  dealer  in  a  necessity,  grew  to  over- 
pass Amalfi,  on  the  West  Coast,  as  merchant  at 
large.  It  seems  to  be  the  fact  that  Venice  came 
up  to  the  Crusades  supreme  in  the  Adriatic 
and  the  Eastern  Mediterranean.  The  Amal- 
fitans,  by  the  commutations  of  trade,  had  been 
on  very  comfortable  terms  with  their  Saracen 
neighbors  to  the  South.  Amalfi  may  have  suc- 
ceeded to  the  pleasant  relations  of  Syracuse 
with  Egypt,  turned  Saracen.  At  any  rate,  for 
a  period  Venice  was  glad  to  be  counted  a  rival 
of  Amalfi.  But  when  the  Normans  adventured 
South,  the  enterprising  sons  of  Tancred,  and 


76  EAST  BY  WEST 

Amalfi  became  politically  Norman,  there  could 
be  no  longer  agreeable  intercourse  with  the 
Saracen  of  the  Maghrib,  to  whom  the  Norman 
was  emphatically  uncongenial.  In  the  instant 
rivalries  of  commerce  and  the  mutual  fierce- 
nesses of  the  Italian  towns,  Amalfi  was  left  be- 
hind, and  its  business  at  Constantinople,  Anti- 
och,  Jerusalem,  Alexandria,  and  elsewhere, 
passed  a  good  deal  to  Venice.  Or  rather,  the 
Seljuk  Turk  getting  so  strong  in  those  terri- 
tories, commerce  as  it  had  been  was  interrupted, 
new  adjustments  were  necessary,  and  Venice 
was  in  a  position  to  adjust  itself  more  readily 
than  others.  As  well  representative  of  the 
Seljuk  powers,  we  may  fasten  upon  the  Sultans 
of  Rum  (whom  Barbarossa  bearded),  that  is, 
the  Romany  Sultans,  or  Seljuk  rulers  of  much 
of  Romania  Levantine.  It  was  their  strictly 
orthodox  Islamism  and  rude  enforcements  that 
gave  impulse  to  the  Crusading  movements  from 
the  West.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  the 
hardening  of  Greek  orthodoxy  that  enabled  the 
Seljuks  to  make  such  progress  in  the  Byzan- 
tine Empire:  the  Greeks  were  persecuting  their 
own  heretics,  the  Seljuks  offered  some  relief. 
The  Greeks  at  the  same  time  were  showing  the 
effects  of  running  after  riches  as  such  —  caste 
system,  sorry  intrigues  among  the  ruling  class, 
venality,  reliance  on  mercenaries.  It  was  a 
critical  time  when  Isaac  Comnenus  came  to  the 


EAST  BY  WEST  77 

throne  at  Constantinople  in  1057,  believing  as 
he  did  that  his  Roman  Empire  had  attained 
wealth  and  power  enough  to  secure  it  a  perma- 
nent superiority  over  every  other  government. 
The  case  stood  how?  In  a  few  years  Turkish 
territory  would  be  visible  from  the  dome  of 
St.  Sophia,  and  but  for  crusading  Latins  the 
city  would  have  fallen  to  the  Turk  centuries 
before  the  Ottoman  conquest.  In  a  few  years, 
upon  the  usurpation  of  Alexius  Comnenus,  Con- 
stantinople was  to  be  given  up  to  sack  by 
Sclavonians,  Bulgarians,  and  Greeks  in  the  serv- 
ice of  the  rebel,  and  the  city  was  not  to  re- 
cover, in  prestige  or  commerce,  from  the  ef- 
fects of  such  a  blow.  And  raised  to  the  throne, 
Alexius,  to  keep  his  hold,  must  at  once  call  in 
Venice,  as  against  the  conquering  Norman, 
Robert  Guiscard,  for  repelling  whom  Venice  was 
to  be  given  privileges  that  would  lead  direct 
to  the  Venetian  control  of  1204.  To  treat  of 
the  matter  in  so  offhand  a  way,  Constantinople 
as  a  Greek  capital  and  as  a  world  focus  was 
becoming  an  impossibility.  Islam  of  the  East 
was  at  its  gates,  and  the  restless  West  (typi- 
fied by  Italy)  finding  organization  somehow, 
learning  its  power,  combative,  full  of  life,  full 
of  politics  —  the  West  was  up.  It  was  a  new 
time.  There  could  never  be  another  Rome. 
Constantinople  must  lose  all  of  its  Roman 
role.     The  Mediterranean  was  to  be  for  Eu- 


78  EAST  BY  WEST 

rope ;  and  commercially,  Venice  of  Italy  was 
to  stand  most  for  Europe  until  the  Far  West 
of  the  Atlantic  loomed. 

NORMANS  IN  THE  EASTERN  MEDITER- 
RANEAN 

William  the  Norman,  son  of  Robert  Diable, 
set  up  his  rule  in  Britain  of  the  West,  and 
died  in  1087.  Robert,  called  Guiscard,  son  of 
Tancred  the  Norman,  died  in  1085,  lord  of 
much  of  Greek  Italy,  what  was  left  of  Greek 
Italy  in  the  South  and  Sicily.  On  the  pretext 
of  alliance  by  marriage  with  the  Byzantine 
Emperor,  whom  Alexius  Comnenus  had  ex- 
pelled, Guiscard  resolved  upon  a  conquest  of 
Constantinople.  His  first  move  was  against 
Dyrrachium,  Durazzo  in  Albania,  the  strongest 
fortress  of  the  Byzantine  government  on  the 
Adriatic.  Guiscard  attacked  the  place  with  a 
large  fleet.  It  was  an  interesting  siege,  which 
the  clever  Greeks  withstood.  But  the  Emperor 
Alexius  bringing  up  his  mixed  army  —  Varan- 
gian guards,  Sclavonian  legion,  Frank  mercen- 
aries, Turkish  mercenaries,  and  others  —  a 
battle  was  joined  which  Alexius  lost  by  ill  judg- 
ment. The  King  of  Servia,  an  ally  of  Alexius, 
was  a  spectator  of  the  battle,  and  seems  to  have 
considered  it  an  act  of  imperial  folly.  Venice, 
which  since  the  year  1000,  had  assumed  the 
dukedom  of  Dalmatia,  sent  a  fleet  to  aid  the 


EAST  BY  WEST  79 

Emperor.  It  was,  however,  a  Venetian  that  be- 
trayed the  city  of  Durazzo  to  Guiscard,  who 
shortly  after  the  taking  of  the  place  was  re- 
called to  Italy  to  defend  Pope  Gregory  against 
Henry,  Emperor  of  the  West,  as  it  were. 
Guiscard's  son,  Bohemond,  did  not  conduct  the 
war  wisely  in  his  father's  stead.  Guiscard 
himself,  having  driven  out  the  Emperor  of  the 
West,  plundered  Rome,  and  then  turned  again 
to  the  East.  Off  the  island  of  Corfu  he  de- 
feated the  allied  Venetian  and  Byzantine  fleet. 
Guiscard  then  died,  and  with  him  the  idea  of 
a  Norman  conquest  of  Constantinople.  But  in 
fact,  Robert  Guiscard  was  a  chief  instrument 
in  the  overturning  of  the  city  from  the  West. 
The  Emperor  Alexius,  in  his  emergency,  subsi- 
dized the  Emperor  Henry  to  divert  the  Nor- 
man. The  Emperor  Henry  was  too  much  en- 
gaged with  his  warfare  upon  Pope  Gregory  to 
be  of  solid  avail.  The  Venetians  were  the  allies 
Alexius  drew  advantage  from.  They  were  will- 
ing, alarmed  for  their  trade  with  Greece  and 
the  Levant  should  Guiscard  control  the  en- 
trance to  the  Adriatic.  Alexius  paid  the  Vene- 
tians well,  conceding  to  them  many  valuable 
commercial  privileges  at  Constantinople  and  in 
the  principal  cities  of  the  Empire, —  exemption 
from  import  duties,  a  street  of  warehouses  as- 
signed at  the  capital,  permission  to  trade  any- 
where  outside  the  Black   Sea,   and  within  the 


80  EAST  BY  WEST 

Black  Sea  under  license.  Thus  were  surely  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  Venetian  mercantile  col- 
onies settled  in  the  Byzantine  Empire. 

COMMERCE  AND  THE  CRUSADES 

The  Crusades,  then,  which  we  cannot  explain 
and  must  in  this  deduction  attribute  merely  to 
the  awakening  of  the  West,  began  at  a  time 
when  the  weight  of  Venice  was  already  great  in 
the  Mediterranean.  With  the  Crusades,  Genoa 
and  Pisa  came  to  the  fore,  in  trade  and  po- 
litically. Genoa  and  Pisa  had  done  much  to 
clear  away  the  Saracen  from  the  Western  Medi- 
terranean. It  was  but  natural  that  they 
should  follow  on,  and  assist  in  the  movement 
against  the  Musselman  in  the  East,  when  senti- 
ment turned  that  way.  Genoa,  Venice,  and 
Pisa  had  the  necessary  transportation.  They 
went  into  the  Crusades  advised,  expecting  com- 
mercial gain.  The  Emperor  Alexius  knew 
something  of  the  West,  and  he  gave  himself 
trouble  to  conciliate  the  Latin  chiefs  who  came 
to  him  with  great  talk  of  their  purposes.  A 
contemporary  memoir  brings  out  clearly  the 
"  experienced  anility  "  of  the  Byzantine  gov- 
ernment then,  and  the  mental  inanity  of  the 
Latin  chiefs  who  lived  at  home  "  engourdis, 
orgueilleux,  paresseux  " —  now  "  ivres  de  de- 
vouement,  epris  de  mourir  loin."     The  Crusad- 


EAST  BY  WEST  81 

ers,  prosaically,  were  men,  western  men  with 
western  notions ;  Venice  was  behind  them,  and 
the  Emperor  Alexius  could  not  afford  to  let 
his  boredom  show  itself  conspicuously.  The 
growing  antipathy  to  the  progressive  Western 
Church  confused  the  Byzantine  government  at 
this  time,  and  was  certainly  an  important  fac- 
tor in  the  many  complications  incident  to  the 
Crusades.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Bj'zantine 
government  was  hurt  vitally  in  its  finances,  as 
the  Crusades  began,  by  the  transference  to 
Norman  Sicily  of  so  much  of  the  silk  industry. 
That  was  patently  a  mark  of  western  energy. 
As  time  went  on  Western  energy  grew  very 
distasteful  to  Constantinople.  Venice  had  be- 
come strong  enough  in  the  city  and  in  the  em- 
pire to  be  obstreperous.  The  idea  of  feudal- 
ism had  assumed  proportions.  Constantinople 
was  pleased  to  regard  the  Italian  cities  as  its 
vassals,  and  to  check  Venice,  the  Emperor 
Manuel  conferred  privileges  upon  his  vassals  of 
Pisa  and  Genoa.  The  Venetians  growing  ugly, 
their  property  at  Constantinople  was  seques- 
trated. There  was  war  with  Venice,  but  its 
merchants,  apprehensive  over  the  chance  of 
losing  too  much  to  Genoa  and  Pisa,  came  to 
terms  with  the  Emperor  Manuel  and  went  back 
to  their  status  of  most  favored  nation.  Bal- 
ancing of  powers  being  a  ticklish  pursuit,  in  a 


82  EAST  BY  WEST 

few  years  after  this  unsettling  of  Venice,  that 
republic  became  receiver,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
Byzantine  Empire.  The  Doge  Dandolo  and 
emulous  Crusaders,  at  first  on  the  pretext  of 
a  muddled  dynastic  status,  then  for  mere  con- 
quest, laid  siege  to  Constantinople.  Details 
had  been  carefully  worked  out  in  advance:  the 
first  charge  on  the  booty  was  to  be  for  costs 
of  transportation.  Villehardouin  says  that 
after  this  Conquest  of  1204,  Latins  who  had 
been  in  absolute  poverty,  suddenly  found  them- 
selves possessed  of  wealth  and  living  in  luxury. 
The  people  of  the  city  looked  upon  the  change 
as  the  work  of  Divine  justice  upon  rapacity 
and  crime.  Many  merchants  in  the  city  were 
indifferent,  regarding  the  destruction  of  both 
the  empire  and  the  Patriarchate  as  needed  re- 
forms. May  9th,  1204,  the  scepter  passed  to 
the  Belgians,  on  the  election  of  Count  Baldwin 
of  Flanders,  (a  brave  and  virtuous  man),  to 
the  sovereignty  of  Constantinople  and  what  ter- 
ritory could  be  held  around  it.  It  is  doubtless 
pure  fancy  to  argue  that  Venice  allowed  the 
Count  of  Flanders  rule,  not  only  because  Flan- 
ders was  far  away  from  Venice,  but  also  be- 
cause the  trade  of  the  West  was  growing  rap- 
idly, and  Bruges,  city  of  Flanders,  was  a  great 
seat  of  it,  entrepot  on  the  way  by  coast  from 
the  Baltic  into  the  Mediterranean. 


EAST  BY  WEST  88 

VENICE  AND  THE  BELGIANS  AND  CON- 
STANTINOPLE 

Very  full  years,  those  sixty  before  the  birth 
of  the  poet  Dante  and  the  Parliament  of  Eng- 
land. Dante,  the  terrible,  may  signify  to  us 
what  was  then  the  sum  of  Italy  and  Europe ; 
but  concerned  with  narrow  practical  affairs  we 
go  to  Venice  first,  perforce,  for  information  as 
to  that  time  in  the  Mediterranean.  Venice  was 
looking  for  ducats,  not  for  the  direct  ruling  of 
much  territor3\  The  Rabbi  Benjamin  of  Tu- 
dela  in  Spain,  who  left  Spain  in  the  year  1160, 
on  his  travels  to  Chinese  Tartary,  (by  Alex- 
andria, Constantinople,  the  Black  Sea,  and  the 
Caspian),  found  the  merchants  of  Venice  very 
strongly  fixed  at  Alexandria.  Even  after  the 
conquest  of  1204«,  the  Venetians  were  not  drawn 
away  from  their  chief  aim,  which  was  the  com- 
merce of  the  Levant.  They  were  wise  enough 
not  to  hold  directly  more  than  Crete,  (the  isle 
of  Candy),  to  command  the  Southeast;  and 
their  colony  at  Constantinople.  Certain 
islands  of  the  Aegean  they  were  willing  to 
administer  on  a  feudal  basis.  But  it  was  the 
carrying  trade  they  were  specialists  in,  and  if 
they  could  hold  the  carrying  trade  of  the  Lrev- 
ant,  under  the  suzerainty  of  their  Belgian 
emperors,  they  were  content.  That  overlord- 
ship  being  a  problem  in  infinitesimals,  the  mer- 


84  EAST  BY  WEST 

chants  of  Venice  had  enough  to  do  still,  as  they 
had  long  had,  in  making  themselves  acceptable 
to  the  diverse  spheres  of  influence  they  touched. 
They  made  treaties,  pacts,  and  conventions  all 
the  way  from  Hungary  and  the  North,  through 
Egypt  and  Aleppo  to  Tartary.  For  the  bet- 
ter ordering  of  their  maritime  affairs,  they 
elaborated  the  system  of  trading  fleets  —  leav- 
ing Venice  in  the  spring,  at  the  end  of  June  and 
the  end  of  August,  these  fleets  to  drop  vessels 
at  certain  stations  for  neighborhood  cruises. 
The  spring  fleet,  for  instance,  returned  in  Sep- 
tember, making  rendezvous  at  Crete  with  the 
flota  from  Egypt.  During  the  Latin  occupa- 
tion of  Constantinople  there  was  naturally 
expansion  of  the  commerce  of  Venice.  It  is 
doubtful  whether,  under  the  Belgian  rule,  Ven- 
ice gained  at  Constantinople  or  in  the  region 
near  adjacent.  The  Latins  were  not  efficient 
there.  The  difficulties  were  immense,  but  the 
fact  is  that  the  Latins  were  not  efficient. 
Their  church  was  contemned  in  the  East.  The 
Greeks  would  no  ways  (ionforra.  Politically 
there  was  confusion  throughout.  The  Greek 
aristocracy  was  doing  all  it  could  to  take  over 
Constantinople  again.  The  Kingdom  of  Bul- 
garia was  powerful  to  the  North,  and  between 
it  and  Constantinople  were  Albanians,  Sclav- 
onians,  and  W^allachians  who  desired  to  main- 
tain the  independence  they  had  been  forced  to 


EAST  BY  WEST  85 

assume.  Genoa  was  disgruntled  and  strong 
enough  to  make  trouble.  We  cannot  now 
argue  as  between  Venice  and  Genoa.  Both 
were  strong  and  clash  was  inevitable.  Genoa 
could  not  be  indifferent  to  the  prestige  of  Ven- 
ice from  the  conquest  of  1204.  Immediately 
after  Saint  Louis  and  the  French  were  expelled 
from  Egypt,  and  shortly  before  the  restoration 
of  1261  at  Constantinople,  Venice  and  Genoa 
fell  out  grievously  in  Syria,  the  quarrel  osten- 
sibly over  the  control  of  a  church  at  Acre.  It 
has  been  said  that  these  commercial  jealousies 
of  Venice  and  Genoa  were  the  first  cause  of  the 
Latins  losing  Syria.  Who  knows.''  The  Tar- 
tar was  coming  West  then,  and  great  changes 
were  a-foot.  While  the  Belgian  line  was  at 
Constantinople,  managing  badly,  borrowing 
gold  of  Venice,  using  money  of  the  Pope  and 
Saint  Louis,  tearing  copper  for  coining  from 
the  domes  of  public  buildings  —  in  contrast  to 
those  methods,  the  Khan  of  the  World,  Genghis, 
was  bringing  his  rule  ever  West.  Genghis 
Khan  made  during  those  years  a  plain  road 
from  the  Black  Sea  to  the  far  east,  forced  the 
Ottoman  Turk  out  upon  the  Mediterranean 
(thence  into  Europe),  broke  the  continuity  of 
Russia's  development,  causing  Russia  to  be 
Asiatic  for  five  centuries  at  least.  The  elder 
Marco  Polo,  merchant  of  Constantinople  and 
Crim  Tartary,  could  scarcely  have  had  broth- 


86  EAST  BY  WEST 

ers  traveling  to  Cathay,  had  it  not  been  for 
Genghis  Khan.  Having  mentioned  the  name 
of  Genghis,  Khan  of  the  World,  it  may  be  said 
at  once  that  the  Greeks,  led  by  Palaeologus,  got 
back  Constantinople  in  1261.  Michael,  first  of 
the  House  of  Palajologus,  trying  every  method, 
at  last  drew  in  Genoa,  which  flouting  the  Pope, 
engaged  to  expel  the  Latins  if  given  all  the 
privileges  of  Venice  at  Constantinople.  Here 
then  was  certain  ground  for  a  hundred  years' 
war  for  trade,  between  Venice,  the  ousted,  and 
Genoa,  the  ouster. 

BRUGES  OF  THE  WEST 

Constantinople  had  been  much  maimed  by  the 
Latins.  They  did  not  understand  the  organ- 
ization and  police  necessary  for  such  a  city. 
The  Latins  would  have  fared  better  there  if 
their  own  part  of  the  world  had  not  been  so 
active  at  the  time.  Brisk  as  commerce  was 
then  in  the  West,  there  was  no  considerable 
emigration  from  the  West  following  the  Latin 
conquest.  That  conquest  was  merely  an  inci- 
dent in  the  decline  of  the  Greeks.  The  next 
year  after  the  Restoration,  in  1262,  how  inter- 
esting to  observe  the  solid  grounding  of  the 
fortunes  of  Bruges,  city  of  Flanders,  realm  of 
the  expelled  Emperors  of  the  Latin  line.  In 
the  year  126^, —  remarks  Anderson,  learned  in 
all  the  annals  of  commerce  before  the  Peace  of 


EAST  BY  WEST  87 

Paris  (1763), —  the  Hanseatic  merchants  first 
began  to  resort  to  the  city  of  Bruges  in  Flan- 
ders, and  soon  after  to  make  it  one  of  their 
four  great  comptoirs,  from  which  circum- 
stance, Bruges  greatly  increased  in  riches  and 
commerce;  for  the  bulky  commodities  of  the 
nations  within  the  Baltic  Sea,  such  as  naval 
stores  of  all  kinds,  and  iron,  copper,  corn,  flax, 
timber,  etc.,  beginning  to  be  well  known  to  the 
more  Southern  parts  of  Europe,  by  means  of 
the  numerous  shipping  of  the  Hans  towns, 
became  increasingly  an  object  of  demand. 
But  the  direct  voyage  in  one  and  the  same  sum- 
mer, between  the  Baltic  and  the  Mediterranean 
seas,  being  thought  in  those  times  hazardous 
and  difficult,  the  mariner's  compass  not  being 
as  yet  applied,  a  middle  or  half-way  station  or 
port  became  very  desirable,  to  which  traders  of 
the  seas  should  bring  their  respective  mer- 
chandize in  summer,  viz.,  the  naval  stores,  etc., 
of  the  northern  parts,  and  the  spices,  drugs, 
fruits,  cotton,  et  cetera,  of  the  Levant  by  the 
ships  of  Venice,  Florence,  Pisa,  Genoa :  also 
the  wool,  lead  and  tin  of  England,  and  the 
wines  and  staples  of  France  —  there  to  be 
lodged  as  a  market  for  the  reciprocal  supply  of 
Europe.  Of  all  ports  whatever,  the  ports  of 
Flanders  were  the  best  suited  for  such  a  half- 
way station  or  entreport;  more  especially  as 
the    long    established    manufactures,    both    of 


88  EAST  BY  WEST 

woollens  and  linens,  equally  necessary  to  all 
nations,  were  now  flourishing  there  in  the  high- 
est perfection.  To  Bruges,  therefore,  most 
nations  sent  their  merchandize,  and  brought 
from  thence  the  produce  of  other  nations  which 
they  had  need  of.  So  that  this  famous  city 
soon  became,  as  it  were,  the  general  magazine  of 
merchandize  for  all  Europe;  and  the  country 
of  Flanders  in  general,  as  well  as  Bruges  in 
particular,  became  from  this  circumstance 
extremely  rich  and  populous.  A  French  Queen 
happening  there  was  querulous  at  finding  hun- 
dreds of  queens,  to  judge  by  their  dress.  The 
West  thus  active,  and  central  Asia  lying  open 
to  the  inspection  of  Christendom  as  never 
before,  the  statement  may  well  be  credited  that 
Venice  was  not  dashed  at  the  restoration  to 
the  Greeks  of  the  decaying  old  city  of  Constan- 
tinople, albeit  the  merchants  of  Genoa  were 
instrumental  to  the  shift. 

GENOA 

The  Greek  empire  was  drawing  to  its  end. 
The  House  of  Palseologus  was  too  busied  in 
occasional  defense  to  bestow  the  necessary  care 
upon  the  essentials  of  internal  economy.  The 
factory  system,  managed  from  the  West, 
was  now  firmly  established  in  the  Eastern  Med- 
iterranean. The  Greeks,  still  a  name,  were 
losing  the  greater  part  of  the  carrying  trade  of 


EAST  BY  WEST  89 

that  region.  The  Italians,  placed  where  they 
could  see  Europe  whole,  had  the  method  and  the 
means  to  use  the  East  as  tributary  to  the  ever 
rising  West.  But  to  which  of  the  Italians 
should  the  prize  most  fall?  Matter  of  doubt 
for  a  space.  The  Pope  was  giving  away  parts 
of  the  Earth  then.  He  gave  the  Sicilies  to 
Charles  of  Anjou  in  1265,  alarming  Venice  and 
Constantinople  to  the  point  of  alliance  involv- 
ing new  concessions  to  Venice.  Thereupon  the 
family  of  Doria  (inimical  to  Charles  of  Anjou) 
gaining  power  over  the  Genoese,  Palasologus 
went  back  to  Genoa,  firmly  rooted  Genoa  at 
Constantinople.  So  the  Pope,  Venice,  and 
Charles  of  Anjou  resolved  upon  a  conquest  of 
Constantinople.  The  Sicilian  Vespers  changed 
all  that, —  by  which  we  are  to  know  that  the 
Catalan  was  also  strong  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury Mediterranean.  As  the  upshot  of  these 
diplomacies  of  twenty  years,  Genoa  was  left 
established  at  Constantinople  in  its  quarter  of 
Galata,  whence  the  merchants  of  Genoa  looked 
up  the  Black  Sea,  and  soon  controlled  its  com- 
merce. They  built  up  a  long  chain  of  fac- 
tories, from  Chios  to  Caffa-in-the-Crimea  and 
Tana  at  the  mouth  of  the  Don.  The  north 
shore  of  the  Black  Sea  was  at  this  period,  and 
for  long  after,  the  especial  trading  ground  of 
Genoa.  At  Trebizond  also,  on  the  South 
Shore,   Genoa  grew  to   be   active,   in   touch   in 


90  EAST  BY  WEST 

some  measure  from  that  station  with  Bassora 
and  the  Persian  Gulf.  Musselman  corsairs 
were  in  the  Black  Sea,  but  the  Genoese,  forti- 
fied at  Galata,  fortified  at  Caffa,  could  regard 
themselves  for  near  two  centuries  as  somewhat 
masters  of  the  Black  Sea.  There  were  ancient 
traditions  of  large  commerce  there,  and  Genoa 
maintained  them.  Near  Sebastopol  that  now 
is,  had  stood  the  old  free  city  of  Cherson  — 

"  A  Homer's  language  murmuring  in  her  streets. 
And  in  her  haven  many  a  mast  from  Tyre." 

To  the  East,  towards  the  Volga  and  the  Cas- 
pian, the  mysterious  Khazars  were  long  settled, 
skilful  traders,  with  whom  Constantinople  kept 
up  good  relations.  The  Kief  Russians  had  dis- 
placed them.  The  Kief  Russians  were  apt  for 
trade  themselves.  Now  the  Tartar  had  come 
in,  the  western  merchant  and  the  Franciscan 
fnar  had  a  clear  road  to  the  East,  to  Kara- 
korum  and  beyond  the  Wall  of  China.  Genoa 
might  find  inspiration  in  this  setting.  Besides, 
there  was  the  old  Danube  trade,  down  to  the 
Black  Sea  and  up  as  far  as  Ratisbon  and 
Augsburg,  cities  more  logically  in  the  sphere 
of  Venice.  The  world  was  drawing  very  close 
together,  as  it  learned  to  its  cost  on  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Black  Death,  starting  dreadful 
among  slaughtered  Chinese,  following  the  trade 


EAST  BY  WEST  91 

route  to  the  Volga  and  the  Euxine,  dispersed 
west  and  west  from  a  Genoese  fort  in  the 
Crimea.  Small  wonder  to  hear  of  the  Vene- 
tians, around  the  year  1350,  as  extremely 
active  in  the  Egyptian  trade,  supporting  the 
Mameluke  Sultans  by  their  customs  dues. 
Venice  knew  a  way  to  India,  even  in  plague 
years,  drawing  spices  and  other  India  wares 
in  plenty  from  Aden  in  Arabia,  by  caravan  to 
the  Red  Sea,  thence  overland  to  the  Nile,  and 
down  to  Grand  Cairo  (foundation  of  the 
Fatimites),  and  so  to  Alexandria.  Special- 
ists in  the  Alexandria  trade,  Venice  relinquished 
no  trade  that  could  be  held.  Its  five  years' 
war  with  Genoa  from  1350,  was  over  the  fur 
trade  of  the  Russian  rivers,  and  Venice  got  the 
worst.  A  few  years  after,  the  Emperor  at 
Constantinople  granted  Venice  the  island  of 
Tenedos,  at  the  entrance  of  the  Dardanelles. 
Then  the  Genoa  men  besieging  Tenedos,  the 
Venetians  used  cannon  upon  them  —  a  weapon 
newly  improved  by  the  Germans  —  and  greatly 
terrified  the  Genoa  men.  The  war  grew  fierce 
to  extermination.  A  great  disaster  befell  Ven- 
ice at  Pola.  Genoa  thought  to  rid  the  seas 
wholly  of  its  rival:  blockaded  Venice  in  1380: 
found  Venice  too  resourceful  to  be  overcome. 
That  was  the  climax.  Genoa  split  by  faction, 
came  under  foreign  rule,  French  or  Lombard, 


92  EAST  BY  WEST 

and  by  the  close  of  another  century  had  not 
the  energy  to  furnish  its  son  Columbus  with 
shipping  for  his  quest. 

THE  OTTOMAN  TURK 

Meantime,  that  is  with  the  Era  of  the  Black 
Death,  something  new  had  appeared  in  Europe 
—  the  Ottoman  Turk.  About  coeval  with  the 
House  of  Habsburg,  the  House  of  Othman 
reached  power  in  northwestern  Asia  Minor 
through  wisdom  and  efficiency.  Bending  to 
the  necessities  and  using  the  opportunities 
brought  about  by  the  incoming  of  the  Tartar 
and  the  status  of  the  Greek  Empire,  Othman 
and  his  son  Orkhan  made  themselves  free  of  a 
great  territory  south  and  southwest  of  Con- 
stantinople, about  Brusa,  Nicomedia  (Ismid), 
Nicasa  and  Pergamus.  The  Sultan  Orkhan 
"  stands  forward  in  the  world's  history  as  one 
of  the  few  lawgivers  who  have  created  a  nation 
and  founded  an  empire  by  legislative  enact- 
ments." He  looked  through  appearances  to 
realities,  and,  of  a  constructive  turn,  was 
severely  insistent  upon  realities.  The  slave 
trade  then  being  a  matter  of  course,  slaves  still 
the  most  marketable  commodity  throughout  all 
Western  Asia,  Orkhan  hit  upon  a  policy  of 
training  Christian  tribute  children  for  his  pur- 
poses :  he  took  them  at  the  age  of  eight,  and 
brought  them  up  in  his  household  for  war  or 


EAST  BY  WEST  93 

for  the  civil  service  —  a  college  of  conquerors 
and  administrators.  For  a  long  time  the  Otto- 
man Sultans  were  men  of  progress,  stimulating 
intelligence,  open  to  suggestion  for  any  better- 
ment in  their  armies  or  their  government.  So 
they  gained  ground  fast  and  surely  in  the  clos- 
ing evil  days  of  the  Greek  empire.  It  is  aston- 
ishing and  dreadful  to  observe  how  susceptible 
government  is  of  disaffection,  springing  from 
misrule  in  part.  The  price  of  existence  is 
eternal  vigilance.  The  Saracens  had  taken 
Constantinople,  but  for  the  reforms  of  Leo. 
Everywhere  the  Ottoman  found  the  people  glad 
of  a  change.  The  times  were,  to  be  sure,  much 
out  of  joint:  Revolution  in  the  Balkans;  the 
old  line  of  Comnenus  holding  out  at  Trebizond ; 
at  Constantinople,  theological  bigotry,  intrigue 
upon  intrigue,  Palaeologus  and  Cantacuzene, 
Turkish  mercenaries  bribed  by  permission  to 
make  slaves  of  Greeks ;  round  about,  the  ships 
and  men  of  Genoa  and  Venice  (to  say  nothing 
of  Catalans)  choosing  any  side  that  offered 
profit  to  them ;  South  and  North,  the  Ottoman 
Turk,  dedicated,  incorrigible.  By  the  time 
Genoa's  naval  power  began  to  go  down.  Sultan 
Murad,  son  of  Orkhan,  had  taken  Adrianople 
and  won  the  battle  of  Kossova,  thus  gaining  the 
Balkans;  and  Bajazet,  son  of  Murad,  had 
imposed  terms  on  the  Emperor  at  Constanti- 
nople, his  vassal  and  tributary.     What   could 


94  EAST  BY  WEST 

be  the  future  of  the  Greeks,  when  Manuel, 
Emperor  at  Constantinople,  took  command  of 
the  Greek  contingent  of  Bajazet's  army  besieg- 
ing Philadelphia,  last  independent  Greek  com- 
munity in  Asia  Minor?  The  people  of  Phila- 
delphia, when  they  saw  the  Emperor  Manuel 
and  the  imperial  standard  in  the  hostile  army, 
perceived  that  the  cause  of  Greek  liberty  and 
of  the  orthodox  church  was  hopeless,  and  capit- 
ulating, got  very  fair  treatment.  Greek  lib- 
erty needed  something.  Marshal  Boucicault 
of  France  came  out  to  defend  Constantinople ; 
the  Emperor  Manuel  set  off  for  Italy,  France 
and  England  begging  help.  He  got  little  solid 
aid  in  the  West,  and  Constantinople  was  saved 
from  direct  Ottoman  rule  only  by  the  incur- 
sions of  Tamerlane  the  Tartar  and  his  chas- 
tisement of  Bajazet.  Bajazet's  sons  falling  to 
civil  war,  the  life  of  the  Greek  Empire  was  pro- 
longed awhile.  As  a  means  of  defense,  the  Act 
of  Union  with  the  western  church  proved  to  be 
as  good  as  nothing.  Except  for  the  close  con- 
junction of  heart  and  treasure,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Constantinople  could  have  made  any 
resistance,  when  the  Sultan  Mohammed,  son  of 
the  second  Murad,  planned  the  city's  final  fall. 
Constantinople  was  necessary  to  Mohammed, 
and  he  was  convinced  of  that.  It  does  not  at 
once  appear  why  the  city  did  not  seem  more 
necessary  to  powers  of  the  West  —  to  Venice, 


EAST  BY  WEST  95 

for  example.  It  may  be  that  the  case  was 
altered  now  that  there  was  determination  to 
take  the  city  by  land  forces.  As  matters 
stood,  all  the  nations  then  trading  to  Constan- 
tinople furnished  contingents  to  defend  its 
walls.  Of  the  twelve  general  officers  in  com- 
mand of  the  city,  only  two  were  Greeks. 
Genoa  sent  two  galleys  and  a  handful  of  troops 
to  aid  the  last  Constantine.  Venice  furnished 
three  galleasses  and  a  body  of  troops.  The 
consul  of  the  Catalans  and  his  Aragonese  coun- 
trymen undertook  the  holding  of  the  great  pal- 
ace. There  were  a  few  papal  troops.  A  Ger- 
man named  Grant,  who  came  with  the  Genoese, 
was  the  most  experienced  artilleryman  and 
military  engineer  in  the  place.  The  Sultan 
Mohammed  moved  the  first  division  of  his  army 
from  Adrianople  in  February  1453.  It  was 
difficult  to  get  his  artillery  through,  but  he 
balked  at  no  obstacle.  Mohammed  had  buUt 
up  a  fleet,  which  was  of  no  great  use  to  him. 
He  had  studied  the  whole  problem  well,  and 
despite  mishaps,  pushed  the  siege  fiercely. 
The  night  before  the  final  assault,  end  of  May, 
the  whole  Ottoman  encampment  was  resplend- 
ent with  the  blaze  of  lanterns.  The  Ottoman 
army  was  silent  through  the  night,  except  for 
solemn  chants,  calling  true  believers  to  prayer. 
May  29th  was  the  end.  The  walls  had  been 
battered  at  a  great  breach,  and  the  assault  was 


96  EAST  BY  WEST 

not  withstood.  Constantine  the  Emperor 
fought  to  the  last:  a  column  of  janissaries 
dashed  into  the  city  over  his  lifeless  body. 
The  young  Mohammed,  riding  through  the 
streets,  was  struck  with  the  desolate  aspect  of 
the  place  and  the  proofs  of  old  decay :  he  was 
moved  to  quote  Firdausi  — 

"  The  spider's  curtain  hangs  before  the  portal  of 
Caesar's  palace; 
The  owl  is  the  sentinel  on  the  watch  tower  of 
Afrasiab." 

VENICE  FROM  1453 

Think,    in    this    battered   Caravanserai 
Whose  portals  are  alternate  Night  and  Day, 
How  Sultan  after  Sultan  with  his  Pomp 
Abode  his  destin'd  Hour  and  went  his  Way  — 

We  may  fancy  certain  of  the  merchants  of 
Venice,  (not  a  few  of  them  writer,  philosopher, 
merchant,  and  statesman  all  in  one),  quoting 
some  such  lines  of  Khayyam,  on  learning  the 
news  of  the  fall  of  Constantinople.  How  had 
Venice  regarded  the  encroachment  of  the 
Osmanli  Turks?  Was  it  the  hypothesis  that 
the  Republic  might  keep  what  it  had,  see  Genoa 
depressed,  and  be  the  gainer  in  the  end?  Was 
there  only  a  muddling  policy  at  Venice,  in  view 
of  the  astounding  organization  of  the  line  of 
Othman?     Was   the  business   of   the  West   so 


EAST  BY  WEST  97 

vast  that  the  rottenness  of  the  Greek  Empire 
was  looked  upon  with  indifference?  Whatever 
the  basis  of  opinion,  it  is  clear  that  the  Levant 
factory  system  that  had  grown  up  before  1453, 
along  with  the  exuberant  commercial  activity 
of  the  West  since  the  Crusades,  had  caused 
Venice  to  regard  the  East  differently.  Maybe 
it  had  become  very  plain  that  the  East  was  the 
East,  and  that  backshish  diplomacy  with  what- 
ever was  the  power  there  was  the  only  program 
for  a  trading  people  of  the  West.  But  it  was 
soon  to  appear  that  the  Levant  factory  system 
had  suffered  a  heavy  jolt,  that  the  Turk,  from 
Constantinople,  was  intending  to  make  life  dis- 
agreeable for  all  Franks  within  reach,  and  long 
reach.  Not  long  before  his  death,  some  twenty 
years  after  the  conquest  of  Constantinople,  the 
Sultan  Mohammed  finished  his  task  of  expelling 
the  Genoese  from  Asia  Minor  and  the  Black 
Sea.  He  began  in  a  small  way,  and  ended  by 
forcing  Genoa  out  everywhere,  denying  them  at 
last  their  especial  depots  at  Caffa  in  the  Cri- 
mea, and  at  Tana-on-Don.  Genoa  had 
already  assigned  Caffa  to  its  Bank  of  St. 
George,  which  bank  INIachiavel  thought,  later, 
might  be  assignee  for  Genoa  itself.  Nor 
Genoa  nor  its  bank  could  hold  Caffa.  The 
Black  Sea  was  now  closed.  All  knowledge  of 
its  shores  was  lost  to  the  West,  its  cities  lay 
beyond  the  sphere  of  trade,  and  the  countries 


98  EAST  BY  WEST 

once  frequented  by  Genoese  and  Venetian  mer- 
chants became  as  much  a  region  of  mystery  as 
they  had  been  before  Jason  sought  out  the 
Golden  Fleece  that  way.  Seamen  of  Genoa 
could  only  repeat  vague  tales  of  the  stormy 
Euxine,  and  Genoese  merchants  recall  some 
memory  of  rich  Caffa  and  splendid  Trebizond. 
The  result  was  that  Venice  was  left  with  a 
vexed  monoply  in  the  Levant, —  vexed  enough 
in  the  light  of  the  Venetian  and  Turkish  annals 
of  Greece  and  the  Archipelago  for  a  half  cen- 
tury after  1453.  But  the  monopoly  was  there, 
else  the  West  might  have  done  more  to 
strengthen  the  arm  of  Venice  against  the  Turk 
who  came  as  far  as  the  Isonzo  for  slaves  and 
Frank  plunder.  Venice  had  so  put  on  great- 
ness that  these  things  were  annoyances  rather 
than  portents,  for  it  is  significant  that  Venice 
held  Crete,  that  important  naval  station,  long 
after  1453.  Notwithstanding  the  Turk,  the 
republic  of  Venice  was  sensibly  great  when 
Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  died,  and  so  also 
after  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal's  work  had  led 
to  what  was  to  undo  wholly  the  Venetian  sys- 
tem. The  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  century 
must  interest  the  curious  —  discovery  then  of 
the  Far  West,  new  discovery  of  the  Far  East, 
new  discovery  of  the  Heavens  above.  The 
Venetian  system  was  not  amenable  to  such 
data.     That  system  grew  out  of  skilful  adap- 


EAST  BY  WEST  99 

tation  to  the  facts  of  the  old  Christian  world 
with  the  Mediterranean  as  its  main  sea.  Dur- 
ing the  salad  years  of  Albuquerque  and  Her- 
nan  Cortez,  Venice  had  the  comfortable  assur- 
ance that  the  India  trade  in  the  large  could  not 
but  pass  through  the  warehouses  of  merchants 
of  Venice.  The  Venetian  system  seemed  fixed 
as  the  Ptolemaic,  what  with  commerce  courts, 
government  shipping  —  flotte  annate  in  mer- 
canzia  —  consular  agents,  banks,  highly  organ- 
ized manufactures,  marine  insurance,  caravan 
insurance:  the  western  market  very  much  the 
commercial  oyster  of  Venice,  through  its  Syria 
fleet,  Flanders  fleet;  through  its  overland  and 
river  trade  to  Austria  and  Germany,  (art  route 
as  well)  by  Augsburg,  Ratisbon,  across  to  the 
Rhine  and  down  to  Cologne  and  the  coast,  in 
close  touch  with  all  the  business  of  the  Hansa. 
Venice  had  the  trade,  so  much  so,  that  looking 
into  Venice  before  America  was,  it  is  easy  to 
overlook  even  the  Hansa  League,  the  Cham- 
pagne fairs,  Flanders,  London,  Barcelona,  and 
all  the  rest,  outside  Venice,  that  went  to 
make  up  the  merchants'  world  then.  For  one 
thing,  "  Dives  opum  divesque  virorwm  "  Venice 
would  have  none  of  the  Inquisition,  and  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  Corinthian  manners  were 
any  worse  for  the  municipal  soul  than  the 
Inquisition  could  be.  "  Qua  sinus  Adriacis 
imterlitus  vltimus  undis,  subjacet  Arcturo  " — 


100  EAST  BY  WEST 

placed  thus  Venice,  as  the  old  world  was  about 
changing,  by  sea  change  to  get  baptism  for  a 
new  time, —  the  Great  Republic  must  stand  for 
us  representative  of  the  old  activities  of  the 
Old  West:  Central  Europe,  let  us  say,  come  to 
growth  with  the  Renaissance  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean regions.  It  was  fitting  indeed  that 
when  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  desired  a  gen- 
eral map  for  his  navigators'  school  he  should 
go  to  Era  Mauro,  Camaldolese,  of  Venice;  and 
nowise  astonishing  that  Era  Mauro  produced 
the  finest  map  that  has  come  down  to  us  from 
the  Middle  Ages,  on  which,  south  of  Africa, 
was  figured  a  little  ship  standing  for  Asia. — 
Piccolo  mondo  antico,  in  some  respects. 
Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  pointed  the  way  to 
America  as  Constantinople  was  falling  to  the 
Turk.      So  the  old  times  gave  place. 


EAST  BY  WEST 
Part  II 


EAST  BY  WEST 

PORTUGAL  DISCOVERS  THE  EAST 

It  was  no  business  of  Venice  discovering 
America,  any  more  than  it  was  business  of  Ven- 
ice finding  an  all  sea  road  to  the  East.  What 
could  Venice  gain  by  an  Atlantis,  the  traffic  of 
which  (should  there  be  any)  would  in  the  cir- 
cumstances redound  to  ports  outside  the  Med- 
iterranean? And  what  certainly  could  Venice 
gain  by  an  approach  to  the  East  around  Africa 
from  bases  beyond  Gibraltar?  Considering 
the  year  1492,  it  is  as  if  all  the  troubled  cen- 
turies were  as  nothing  since  the  Phoenicians 
were  monopolists  in  Tartessus  and  sent  their 
ships  far  down  the  African  West  Coast:  as  if 
the  enterprise  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  after  two 
thousand  years,  was  but  fostering  a  logical 
excursion  from  the  Gadeira,  territory  of  Cadiz. 
On  the  contrary,  those  twenty  centuries  had 
been  very  full,  crowded  to  such  a  degree  that 
there  was  now  a  place  in  the  world  for  new  con- 
tinents. The  New  West  had  grown  up,  and  to 
continue  growing  must  go  farther  yet  into  the 
West.     The  West  being  of  a  curious  mind,  its 

belief  that  the  world  was   a  sphere  could  not 
103 


104  EAST  BY  WEST 

fail,  as  the  situation  was,  to  lead  to  an  estab- 
lishment of  the  theory.  That  is  to  say,  the 
time  had  about  come  for  the  world  to  begin  its 
slow  task  of  knowing  itself  as  a  round  world. 
Italy  had  some  part  in  these  new  developments. 
Amalfi,  we  will  say,  supplied  the  compass ; 
Genoa,  Columbus ;  Venice,  the  Cabots ;  and 
Florence,  place  of  literature,  the  man  to  name 
Atlantis  at  last.  But  the  needle  of  this  activ- 
ity was  pointing  away  from  Italy.  Prince 
Henry  of  Portugal,  half  English  and  Fleming, 
by  his  genius  and  industry  had  made  Lisbon 
known  as  a  haven  of  steadied  adventure,  and 
Columbus,  of  Genoa,  was  drawn  to  the  Iberian 
peninsula:  Vespucci  was  in  the  ser\'ice  of  rulers 
there  as  well :  the  Cabots  ser\'ed  England  first, 
then  Spain.  Men  of  the  school  begun  by 
Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  found  the  sea  road 
to  the  East  for  Portugal  and  made  use  of  it 
for  Portugal.  If  the  Musselman  had  grown 
strong  in  the  near  East,  no  sick  man  whatever 
from  Egypt  to  Hungary,  the  energy  come  from 
expelling  him  out  of  the  West  had  found 
employment  that  was  to  diminish  the  relative 
importance  of  the  Mussclman's  prowess. 
When  the  Sultan  Selim  was  taking  over  Egypt 
and  giving  Constantinople  another  name  — 
Islambol, —  Hernan  Cortez  was  staking  out 
Mexico  for  a  power  upon  whom  the  Pope  had 
conferred    large    privileges    indeed.      But    the 


EAST  BY  WEST  105 

Pope  had  fixed  a  meridian,  delimiting  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  spheres  of  influence  in  emer- 
gent parts  of  the  world,  and  at  this  juncture  it 
is  Da  Gama,  Albuquerque,  and  the  Portugals 
that  are  most  interesting  commercially  — 
"  Arms  and  the  heroes  who  from  Lisbon's 
shore." 

The  Portuguese  had  some  notions  as  touch- 
ing the  shape  of  the  earth  themselves,  and  some 
idea  of  the  possible  place  of  India  in  the  gen- 
eral ocean.  They  had  been  for  years  marking 
off  degrees  by  sea  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
Line.  They  regarded  themselves  as  well  on 
towards  India,  and  Columbus  being  no  more 
specific  with  respect  to  Atlantis,  the  Portu- 
guese had  little  interest  in  what  he  proposed. 
He  had  been  in  their  Guinea  trade,  and  they 
were  familiar  with  his  signs.  The  facts  of 
1492  sharpened  their  appetites,  somewhat. 
They  had  reached  the  Turbulent  Cape,  choos- 
ing rather  Good  Hope  for  a  name;  had  sent 
their  envoys  through  Cairo  and  Aden  to  Ethio- 
pia and  India,  one  of  them  returning  by  sea 
from  India  to  Sofala.  Therefore  Portugal 
had  only  to  round  the  Cape  to  Sofala,  and  all 
that  Columbus  could  promise  was  Portugal's. 
Da  Gama  made  the  voyage  from  the  Cape  to 
Sofala,  and  "  past  Mozambic,"  there  was  noth- 
ing to  do  but  follow  the  established  route  up 
the   coast   and   across   to   the  Malabar  towns. 


106  EAST  BY  WEST 

For  near  Sofala  Da  Gama  found  a  man  able  to 
speak  a  little  broken  Arabic,  who  said  that  not 
far  distant  was  a  place  where  large  ships 
resorted,  traders  to  Arabia,  India,  and  other 
parts  of  the  world.  So  Portugal  reached  India 
thus  the  20th  day  of  May,  1498,  and  as  for 
Atlantis,  two  years  later  Portugal  came  upon 
Atlantis  by  accident,  in  sending  out  a  second 
fleet  around  the  Cape.  For  some  time  as  yet 
the  Portuguese  had  reason  to  think  that  the 
accomplishments  of  Columbus  were  nothing 
extraordinary,  whereas  they,  the  Portuguese, 
had  done  most  to  make  a  new  world.  "  Before 
these  our  discoveries,"  says  one  of  their  old 
historians,  "  the  spicery  and  riches  of  the 
eastern  world  were  brought  to  Europe  with 
great  charge  and  immense  trouble.  The 
merchandize  of  the  clove  of  Malacca,  the  mace 
and  nutmeg  of  Banda,  the  sandal  wood  of 
Timor,  the  camphire  of  Borneo,  the  gold  and 
silver  of  Luconia  (Luzon),  the  spices,  drugs, 
dyes,  and  perfumes  of  China,  Java,  Siam,  and 
the  adjacent  kingdoms  centered  in  the  city  of 
Malacca,  in  the  Golden  Chersonesus.  Hither 
all  the  traders  of  the  countries  as  far  westward 
as  Ethiopia  and  the  Red  Sea  resorted  and  bar- 
tered their  own  commodities  for  those  they 
received.  By  this  trade  the  great  cities  of  Cal- 
icut (Malabar  Coast),  Cambaya,  Ormuz,  and 
Aden,   were   enriched.     Nor   was    Malacca   the 


EAST  BY  WEST  107 

only  source  of  their  wealth.  The  western 
regions  of  Asia  had  full  possession  of  the  com- 
merce of  the  rubies  of  Pegu,  the  silks  of  Bengal, 
the  pearls  of  Calicare,  the  diamonds  of  Nar- 
singa,  the  cinnamon  and  rubies  of  Ceylon,  the 
pepper  and  every  spice  of  Malabar,  and  wher- 
ever in  the  eastern  islands  and  shores  Nature 
had  lavished  her  various  riches.  Of  the  more 
western  commerce  Ormuz  was  the  great  mart; 
for  from  thence  the  eastern  commodities  were 
conveyed  up  the  Persian  Gulf  to  Bassora,  on 
the  mouth  of  the  Euphrates,  and  from  thence 
distributed  in  caravans  to  Armenia,  Trebizond, 
Tartary,  Aleppo,  Damascus,  and  the  port  of 
Barut  on  the  Mediterranean.  Suez  on  the  Red 
Sea  was  also  a  most  important  mart.  Here 
caravans  loaded  and  proceeded  to  Grand  Cairo, 
from  whence  the  Nile  conveyed  their  riches  to 
Alexandria  —  at  which  city  and  at  Barut,  some 
Europeans,  the  Venetians  in  particular,  loaded 
their  vessels  with  the  riches  of  the  eastern  world 
and  at  immense  prices  distributed  them 
throughout  Europe."  —  All  this  gorgeous 
East,  so  long  hedged  off,  had  been  laid  open 
directly  to  the  West  by  Portugal.  And  we 
can  understand  how  Spain,  (whose  new  West 
seemed  for  awhile  rather  meager),  should  have 
shown  alarm  at  the  incidence  of  the  Pope's 
meridian,  and  boggled  not  when  the  chagrined 
Magellan,  late  of  the  Spice  Islands,  offered  to 


108  EAST  BY  WEST 

find  a  way  thither  for  Spain,  saving  Spain's 
face  as  far  as  might  be  as  to  the  Far  East. 
Magellan,  then  went  West  about  the  Horn  of 
the  last  West,  and  before  he  died  among  the 
Philippines  in  1521  had  been  around  the  world. 
Sir  John  Mandeville  says  the  world  was  amused 
in  his  youth  by  the  story  of  a  man  who  had 
been  around  the  world.  The  world  had  grown 
too  sophisticated  to  be  only  amused  by  the 
voyage  of  Magellan.  But  in  the  light  of  what 
was  happening  then,  it  is  amusing  to  read  of 
Genoa's  proposal  the  year  before  Magellan's 
death  —  Genoa  proposed  to  Czar  Basil  of 
Muscovy  (as  if  Peter  I  was  in  being)  to  open  a 
way  for  the  India  trade  by  the  Caspian  and  the 
Volga  to  Moscow,  from  Moscow  to  the  Baltic 
and  Europe.  Reformation  was  afoot,  and 
Central  Europe  had  perforce  to  wait  a  long 
time  for  other  results,  as  Holbein  might  have 
said. 

ELIMINATION  OF  THE  PORTUGUESE 

Deliver  us  from  sudden  riches  —  how  won- 
derful and  essentially  sorry  the  career  of  Por- 
tugal, at  home  and  in  the  East,  during  the 
period  of  its  hold  on  the  India  trade,  the  cen- 
tury to  1611  when  Portugal  was  not  altogether 
by  bull  alone  "  lord  of  the  navigation,  con- 
quests, and  trade  of  Ethiopia,  Arabia,  Persia, 
and    India."     Those    years    show    a    splendid 


EAST  BY  WEST  109 

paper  record  here  and  there  for  Portugal. 
For  instance,  immediately  before  Portugal 
came  under  Spain  for  its  sixty  years'  captivity, 
there  was  appointed  a  Viceroy  of  India,  with 
direct  jurisdiction  from  Cape  Gardafu,  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Red  Sea,  to  the  coast  of  Pegu  or 
Siam.  Subordinate  to  the  Viceroy  were  two 
governors,  one  from  Gardafu  to  Cape  Corrien- 
tes,  below  Madagascar,  the  other  from  Pegu 
to  China,  called  the  Governor  of  Malacca. 
These  sounding  titles  were  bestowed  at  a  time 
when  the  glory  of  Portugal  in  the  East  was 
past:  the  nation  had  about  split  on  Africa, 
(not  the  first  or  the  last  of  nations  so  to  do), 
and  the  East  was  learning  from  other  items  also 
how  unstable  Portugal  was.  When  Albuquer- 
que was  in  charge,  it  was  an  opinion  in  India 
that  the  Portuguese  were  among  men  what  lions 
are  among  beasts ;  "  and  for  the  same  reason," 
said  an  Indian  captive  to  a  Portuguese  officer, 
"  nature  has  appointed  that  your  species 
should  be  equally  few."  Then  the  Portuguese 
turning  luxurious,  venal,  and  outrageous,  opin- 
ion changed  in  the  East  —  "  Let  them  alone," 
said  one  Indian  prince  to  another,  "  the  frauds 
of  their  revenue  and  their  love  of  luxury  will 
soon  ruin  them.  They  now  conquer  Asia,  but 
Asia  will  end  by  conquering  them."  And  a 
Shah  of  Persia  asking  a  Portuguese  captain 
how   many    of   the    Indian   viceroys   had   been 


110  EAST  BY  WEST 

beheaded  by  the  Kings  of  Portugal, — "  None," 
rephed  the  officer.  "  Then  you  will  not  long," 
returned  the  Persian,  "  be  the  masters  of  India." 
Albuquerque  had  not  been  of  so  shabby  a  sort. 
He  conquered  and  ruled  from  Ormuz  and  Diu 
and  Goa  to  Malacca,  through  intrepidity  and 
just  dealing:  the  people  worshipped  his  mem- 
ory. But  he  died  in  disgrace  for  his  pains,  and 
later  despoiling  viceroys  branded  his  conduct 
as  madness.  Mens  est  qui  duros  sentiat  ictus. 
Albuquerque  seems  to  have  had  a  program  — 
to  shew  the  strength  of  Portugal  by  feats  of 
arms ;  to  organize  the  commercial  business  of 
the  eastern  coasts,  reducing  and  equalizing 
customs  dues ;  to  govern  even-handedly,  making 
way  for  Portugal  in  the  nexus  of  conflicting  in- 
terests. A  steady  policy  of  that  kind  might 
have  strengthened  Portugal  more  and  more  in 
the  East.  At  best,  the  Portuguese  control 
falling  in  the  time  of  the  great  Mogul  years,  it 
may  be  that  there  was  nothing  for  Portugal  in 
India  but  to  catch  at  shifting  advantagements. 
Although  Akbar  was  by  no  means  lord  of  all 
India,  his  work  must  have  been  influential 
everywhere,  causing  the  work  of  Portugal  to 
appear  trivial  as  it  mostly  was.  The  Portu- 
guese could  supply  the  eastern  coasts  with  a 
better  market  than  those  coasts  had  been  accus- 
tomed to.  That  was  an  incidental  gain  to 
the  East,  and  as  such  might  have  been  skilfully 


EAST  BY  WEST  111 

used  to  the  progressive  enhancement  of  the 
Portuguese  control.  But  Portugal  undertook 
to  bluster  —  with  a  regal  monopoly  of  trade 
and  a  very  expensive  military  establishment. 
The  regal  monopoly  was  in  name  only,  for  pri- 
vate adventurers  were  everywhere.  The  expen- 
sive military  establishment  consumed  the  rev- 
enues, and  moreover  was  made  use  of  in  private 
quarrels,  embroiling  the  Portuguese  endlessly. 
The  Portuguese  coalesced  with  the  natives,  and 
perhaps  that  is  the  sum  of  the  history.  At  any 
rate,  it  was  an  astonishing  record,  that  of  Por- 
tugal in  the  East  during  the  century  after  the 
discovery  of  America.  From  Mozambique  to 
Macao  and  Japan,  the  ships,  the  factories,  the 
arms,  the  heroes,  villains,  and  missionaries  of 
Portugal  —  the  Lusitanian  question  must  have 
seemed  very  important  then  over  many  degrees 
of  the  earth  and  the  ocean.  As  was  but  nat- 
ural, the  Burden  of  Lisbon  was  a  pretty  heavy 
one.  To  Lisbon,  by  nature  a  sort  of  Constan- 
tinople, the  West  had  to  come  for  its  India 
goods.  The  people  flocked  to  town,  such  of 
them  as  were  not  making  their  own  fortunes 
abroad,  and  the  country  side  of  Portugal  was 
given  over  to  slaves  from  the  Slave  Coast. 
King  Sebastian  attempted  to  make  his  hold 
surer  on  Africa,  and  Portugal  went  to  pieces 
rather  suddenly. —  Since  1500  very  much  of  an 
Arabian  Night's   entertainment   for  Portugal, 


112  EAST  BY  WEST 

and   prodigious   ensample   of   how    not   to   go 
about  the  business  of  dealing  with  the  East. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  HABSBURG 

In  the  year  1580  Spain,  that  is  to  say  the 
House  of  Habsburg,  annexed  Portugal  for 
sixty  years.  Consider  for  a  moment  what  the 
House  of  Habsburg  was  in  the  year  1580  and 
thereabouts.  By  the  ancient  system  of  ruling 
houses  and  dominion  come  by  dower,  the  fam- 
ily of  Habsburg  had  by  that  year  assumed 
proportions  to  make  the  Empire  of  the  Anton- 
ines  seem  worthy  of  comparison,  to  say  the 
least.  Marcus  Aurelius  died  at  Vienna. 
Pannonia  had  changed  complexion  since  then. 
The  Turk  was  now  close  by,  but  the  House  of 
Habsburg,  if  stopped  that  way,  had  done  much 
in  quarters  more  to  the  West  —  had  become 
hereditary  keeper  of  the  Holy  German  Empire, 
had  fallen  heir  to  Spain,  to  the  Low  Countries 
and  other  countries,  and  now  had  Portugal. 
Spain  and  Portugal  going  well  around  the 
world  then,  the  House  of  Habsburg  in  1580 
went  as  far  with  its  place  in  the  sun,  and  to 
the  alarm  of  not  a  few  statesmen  of  the  West. 
The  Pope's  meridian  was  now  so  slight  a  divid- 
ing line,  maybe  none  at  all,  but  rather  a  dis- 
agreeable national  date  line.  Not  pretending 
technical  exactness,  let  us  put  the  case  of  an 
Antwerp  merchant  in  the  India  trade  toward 


EAST  BY  WEST  113 

the  year  1580.  Bruges  and  the  Hans  towns 
declining  with  the  discovery  of  America,  Ant- 
werp had  succeeded  to  the  large  affairs  of 
Bruges,  as  comptoir  for  the  business  of  West, 
East,  North,  and  South.  Shortly  before  1580 
an  Antwerp  India  merchant  was  still  accus- 
tomed to  go  to  Lisbon  for  his  imports.  The 
Lisbon  ships  went  as  far  East  as  Macao, 
Japan,  and  the  Spice  Islands.  From  Macao 
or  the  Spice  Islands  to  Manila  was  no  great 
matter.  From  Manila  to  Acapulco,  on  the 
Mexican  West  Coast,  there  had  been  for  some 
years  before  1580  a  regularly  established 
traffic.  Acapulco  and  all  Mexico  were  obliged 
to  deal  with  Seville  under  the  Habsburg-Span- 
ish  rules.  The  flota  from  Vera  Cruz  must 
return  to  Seville  and  nowhere  else.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  an  Antwerp  merchant,  wanting 
certain  India  goods  towards  the  year  1580, 
might  be  in  doubt  whether  to  apply  for  them  in 
the  right  quarters  at  Lisbon  or  at  Seville. 
Come  1580,  with  Portugal  under  the  House  of 
Habsburg,  and  grave  discontents  of  several 
kinds  in  the  Low  Countries,  there  is  no  saying 
how  embarrassed  an  Antwerp  trader  in  India 
goods  might  be.  By  1585  the  situation  at 
Antwerp  was  far  worse:  the  House  of  Habs- 
burg sacked  the  town  and  ruined  its  great 
trade.  Like  Napoleon,  the  House  of  Habs- 
burg held  Antwerp  more  or  less  as  a  "  pistolet 


114  EAST  BY  WEST 

charge  qu'on  tient  sur  la  gorge  de  VAngle- 
terre."  Queen  Elizabeth  was  about  to  aid  the 
city  when  it  fell.  These  things  were  alarming, 
and  in  1588  the  Spanish  Armada,  so  called, 
was  smashed  by  skill  and  good  chance.  That 
great,  ill  managed  fleet,  of  an  undeniable  cru- 
sading spirit,  was  smashed.  The  western 
world  had  long  been  tending  towards  such  an 
issue,  (Henry  VIII  knew  his  ground),  and  the 
result  was  momentous  enough.  For  England 
the  significance  was  that  England  had  become 
and  was  to  continue  a  country  of  progressive 
intelligence ;  for  the  Low  Countries,  that  the 
revolting  provinces  were  to  be  their  own  mas- 
ters ;  for  the  North  of  Europe  at  large  that 
the  reformation  in  opinion  was  to  work  itself 
out ;  and  for  Spain  of  the  Habsburgs  the  sig- 
nificance was  that  the  back  of  Spain  was 
broken.  The  posture  of  affairs  was  changed. 
For  one  thing,  there  were  men  in  England  now 
whose  high  purpose  it  was  to  take  England  into 
the  West,  into  those  vague  reaches  of  the  wild 
North  beyond  the  mines,  monuments,  and  soft 
populations  of  the  Spanish  realms  in  Atlantis. 

THE  DUTCH 

America  and  the  East  had  been  all  at  once 
made  tributary  to  the  Iberian  peninsula,  and 
Iberia  after  a  century  had  shown  itself  some- 
thing less  than  these  wide  and  instant  respon- 


EAST  BY  WEST  115 

sibilities  demanded.  Portugal  was  going  down 
in  the  East,  when  by  becoming  vassals  of  Spain, 
the  Portuguese  had  to  meet  the  jealousies  of 
the  Low  Countries.  Notwithstanding  his  plate 
fleets  from  America,  Philip  II  was  financially 
in  straits  before  the  year  of  the  Armada.  The 
discovery  of  American  bullion  brought  finan- 
cial stress  upon  Europe  in  general.  The 
price  of  wheat  did  not  during  the  sixteenth 
century  fall  to  the  level  of  1492.  Poverty 
increased  throughout  Western  Europe,  both 
Catholic  and  Reformed.  Iberia  fell  short  of 
the  right  adjustments,  and  was  obliged  to  relin- 
quish what  others  knew  better  how  to  use.  Or 
to  put  it  more  narrowly,  it  looked  for  a  time  as 
if  that  corner  of  Europe  might  rule  the  world 
from  the  luck  of  having  been  pioneers  in  so 
much  of  it.  The  result  was  not  so,  and  it  is 
easy  now  to  give  the  reasons.  At  a  first  glance 
it  seems  a  little  strange  that  Latins,  (Latins 
having  had  so  long  an  apprenticeship  in  trade 
to  the  East,  and  with  all  the  opportunities  in 
the  neAv  conditions),  should  have  lost  their  hold 
on  the  East  within  a  few  decades  after  finding 
the  sea  road  thither.  But  the  Latins  who  had 
had  the  apprenticeship  were  not  the  Latins  who 
approached  the  East  around  Africa.  Nor 
was  the  East  so  reached  the  same  as  the 
East  most  familiar  to  Latins  earlier.  And 
approach  by   sea   is   very   different   from   any 


116  EAST  BY  WEST 

other  approach.  More  than  anything  else,  no 
further  to  quibble,  the  Latins  who  found  the 
Far  East  and  the  Far  West  were  not  Liber- 
als but  Conservatives.  Commerce  certainly 
they  regarded  in  a  strictly  conservative  way, 
and  commerce  looked  at  that  way  cannot  best 
flourish.  Who  can  understand  the  history  of 
nations.''  Nobody  very  well,  and  nobody  at  all 
who  does  not  understand  something  of  the  vag- 
aries of  his  own  neighbors  in  the  parish,  not 
overlooking  himself.  People  are  seldom  bom 
blind,  and  they  do  not  often  become  blind;  but 
they  grow  shortsighted,  squinting,  really  evil- 
e^ed.  And  they  have  many  troubles,  even  in 
times  of  prosperity,  not  good  for  their  wits  or 
their  souls.  People  are  subject,  besides,  to  the 
workings  of  angels  and  devils,  that  is  plain. 
So  whence  cometh  wisdom  and  where  is  the 
place  of  understanding?  As  regards  Iberia  — 
the  Portuguese  and  the  Spanish  —  all  we  can 
say  is  that  Iberia  lost  the  India  trade  to  the 
Dutch  and  the  English,  peoples  altogether 
Atlantic,  and  lost  in  a  way  that  seems  now 
explicable.  The  emporium  of  Antwerp  being 
hit  hard  by  the  family  of  Habsburg,  commerce 
removed  to  Amsterdam,  chief  port  of  the  State 
of  Holland.  Amsterdam  naturally  put  no  bars 
in  the  way,  indeed  began  a  policy  of  damaging 
the  Scheldt  thoroughly.     For  ten  years  after 


EAST  BY  WEST  117 

the  breaking  up  of  Antwerp,  Amsterdam  was  in 
straits  somewhat  for  India  goods.  Imports 
still  came  to  Lisbon.  Thither  Amsterdam  sent 
ships  to  take  off  the  goods  under  neutral  col- 
ors. Such  ships  began  to  be  confiscated,  and 
the  sailors  imprisoned.  The  story  is  that  Cor- 
nelius Houtman,  a  Dutch  seaman  apprehended 
at  Lisbon,  made  careful  inquiries  there  with 
respect  to  India  trade  routes  and  markets. 
This  information  he  contrived  to  lay  before 
merchants  of  Amsterdam,  who  had  been  con- 
sidering plans  for  a  northeast  passage,  and 
now  despatched  Houtman  to  the  East  with  four 
vessels,  around  Africa.  He  returned  a  century 
after  Da  Gama  went  out,  and  the  era  of  the 
Portuguese  in  the  Spice  Islands  and  that  neigh- 
borhood was  about  over.  For  with  the  seven- 
teenth century,  English  ships  also  appeared  in 
India  waters  for  trade  and  conquest.  In  the 
year  1587,  says  Camden,  Sir  Francis  Drake 
took  a  rich  Portugal  carrack  at  the  Azores, 
"  out  of  the  papers  whereof  the  English  so  fully 
understood  the  rich  value  of  the  East  India 
merchandize  and  the  manner  of  trading  into  the 
Eastern  world,  that  they  afterwards  set  up  a 
gainful  trade  by  establishing  a  company  of 
East  India  merchants  at  London."  Incentive 
also,  was  the  Dutch  putting  up  the  price  of 
pepper. 


118  EAST  BY  WEST 


THE  ENGLISH  — EAST  AND  WEST 

Dutch  and  English  had  been  made  to  see  wide 
use  at  last  for  their  own  good  bottoms.  These 
peoples  knew  how  to  work  and  how  work  breeds 
power.  They  had  shown  themselves  stubborn 
for  what  is  called  political  liberty.  When  they 
reached  the  point  of  going  directly  into  the 
commerce  of  the  round  world,  they  found  them- 
selves equal  to  their  destinies.  Both  the  Dutch 
and  the  English,  once  getting  the  hang  of  the 
open  sea,  learned  the  trade  to  the  far  east  at 
the  expense  of  Iberia,  and  were  drawn  inevit- 
ably on  to  designs  against  Iberia  in  the  far 
west.  By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
it  was  plain  that  England  was  to  do  more  than 
Holland  in  both  regions.  In  the  East,  Holland 
attempted  a  stem  monopoly  of  the  spice  trade, 
and  forced  England  to  what  led  to  a  broader, 
continental  policy.  In  the  West,  in  Virginia, 
that  bare  country  all  to  the  North  of  Spain, 
English  custom  came  to  rule, —  ruled  even 
before  the  Revolution  of  1688  —  and,  so  it 
seems,  merely  because  it  was  English  custom. 
It  was  of  no  small  significance  that  the  first 
parliament  of  Virginia  was  assembling  when 
the  Dutch  in  the  Indian  trade  at  Manhattan 
had  obviously  become  the  creatures  of  a  com- 
mercial monopoly.  And  also,  but  a  few  years 
before,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  had  said  of  the  Hoi- 


EAST  BY  WEST  119 

landers  — "  Be  their  estates  what  it  will,  let 
them  not  deceive  themselves  in  believing  that 
they  can  make  themselves  masters  of  the  sea, 
for  certainly  the  shipping  of  England,  with  the 
great  squadron  of  His  Majesty's  navy  royal, 
are  able  in  despite  of  any  province  or  state  in 
Europe  to  command  the  great  and  large  field 
of  the  ocean."  It  is  necessary  to  think  of  cer- 
tain men  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury if  we  would  understand  how  England  came 
through  that  century.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  we 
know.  We  do  not  know  so  much  of  Anthony 
Jenkinson  and  Sir  Thomas  Smythe  and  William 
Adams  and  John  Smith.  Of  these  in  brief: 
Anthony  Jenkinson  was  living  in  1611.  He 
was  long  in  the  service  of  the  Muscovy  Com- 
pany, established  in  1554,  negotiating  for  it 
with  the  Czar  Ivan  the  Terrible,  even  dining 
with  the  Czar  "  directly  before  his  face."  An- 
thony Jenkinson  was  the  first  Englishman  who 
penetrated  into  Central  Asia,  to  Bokhara,  and 
was  very  skillful  in  commercial  diplomacy  with 
the  Russians.  Somewhat  as  a  result  of  Jenkin- 
son's  activities,  the  Northern  trade  being  now 
better  understood.  Queen  Elizabeth  shook  off 
the  Hansa  League  ten  years  before  the  Ar- 
mada.—  King  James  sent  Sir  Thomas  Smythe 
ambassador  to  Russia  in  1604.  The  grandfa- 
ther of  Sir  Thomas  Smythe  had  been  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Muscovy  Company.     Sir 


lao  EAST  BY  WEST 

Thomas  Smythe  himself  was  largely  interested 
in  that  company,  was  interested  in  the  Levant 
Company,  was  first  governor  of  the  East  India 
Company  and  governor  for  many  years  to 
1621,  and  was  Treasurer  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany from  1609  to  1620.  His  horizon  was 
pretty  wide  —  William  Adams  was  pilot  and 
master  for  the  old  company  of  Barbary 
Merchants  which  gave  place  to  the  Turkey 
Company  which  showed  the  way  to  the  East 
India  Company.  When  the  Dutch  began  to 
go  to  India  Adams  engaged  with  them  "  to 
make  a  little  experience  of  the  small  knowledge 
God  had  given  him  of  the  Indish  traffick." 
After  many  hardships  he  reached  Japan.  Be- 
ing a  man  of  great  practical  sense  he  was  taken 
into  the  service  of  the  Shogun  lyeyasu,  build- 
ing ships  for  him.  In  1611  Adams  learned  that 
the  English  were  in  the  East.  He  indited  them 
a  letter,  which  they  received  at  their  Bantam 
factory.  His  countrymen  had  already  heard 
of  him,  and  had  dispatched  three  ships  the  same 
year  to  open  a  trade  with  Japan.  Adams  was 
very  useful  to  the  London  East  India  Com- 
pany in  Japan  until  1616  when  the  Japanese 
began  to  curtail  the  priviliges  of  both  Dutch 
and  English.  Dutch  and  English  were  at  war 
in  Japan  before  William  Adams  died  in  1620, 
and  shortly  after,  the  mainland  of  Japan  was 
closed   to   all   Europeans. —  While  Adams   was 


EAST  BY  WEST  121 

building  ships  for  the  Japanese  navy,  John 
Smith  of  Lincolnshire  was  seeing  to  it  that  the 
Colony  of  Virginia  in  America  did  not  fail. 
Before  coming  to  Virginia,  Captain  John  Smith 
had  fought  the  Turk  in  Transylvania  and  been 
a  Turkish  slave  at  Varna  in  the  Black  Sea. — 
From  such  items  we  know  what  England  was 
doing  in  the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, "  A  nation  not  slow  and  dull,  but  of  a 
quick,  ingenious  and  piercing  spirit,  acute  to 
invent,  subtle  and  sinewy." 

IBERIA  IN  THE  WEST 

But  the  greatness  of  Iberia  in  the  West  is 
not  to  be  gainsaid.  There  was  a  Latin-Amer- 
ica in  the  West.  "  Americans  no  Jews,"  thus 
argued  a  learned  man  in  disproof  of  the  tenet 
that  the  Americans  who  had  America  first  were 
Jews.  Whoever  they  were.  North  or  South, 
they  did  not  offer  the  inertia  of  the  East  upon 
the  direct  approach  of  the  West.  Certainly, 
Latin-America  showed  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  must  still  show,  a  Semitic  tincture, 
Spain  and  Portugal  deriving  from  the  Semitic 
East  a  good  deal.  If  family  trees  were  known 
root  and  branch  it  might  not  be  impossible  to 
trace  Latins  of  America  to  Sidonians  of  Tar- 
tessus  or,  coming  nearer  home,  to  Cartha- 
ginians. At  any  rate,  Rome  flung  its  shield 
far   across    the   dim   ocean,   and  where  it   fell. 


122  EAST  BY  WEST 

often  crushing,  Rome  set  up  another  life  in  the 
West.  Trajan,  Hadrian,  Theodosius,  were 
Spaniards,  all  perhaps  of  the  country  of  the 
Turdetani,  near  Seville.  The  Emperor  Ha- 
drian, interested  in  so  many  things,  would  have 
been  pleased  to  know  of  the  fortunes  of  Se- 
ville, how  Seville  was  to  become  headquarters 
for  great  part  of  a  New  West.  For  with 
the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  an- 
cient town  of  Seville  (famous  for  its  snufF 
market  later)  was  granted  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  Spanish  trade  to  America.  And 
within  a  few  years  after  the  discovery  of  the 
Potosi  mines  in  154f5,  there  were  sailing  an- 
nually from  Seville  two  fleets  for  the  West  — 
one,  the  Flota,  destined  for  Vera  Cruz,  the 
other,  the  Galleons,  to  touch  at  Carthagena 
and  Porto  Bello.  These  fleets  sailed  together 
as  far  as  the  Antilles  on  the  outward  voyage, 
and  returning  made  rendezvous  at  the  Hav- 
annah.  For  two  hundred  and  twenty  years 
Seville  was  in  this  manner  the  gateway  to  the 
West  for  Spain.  When  the  staple  was  trans- 
ferred to  Cadiz  the  system  of  trade  fleets  was 
already  declining.  For  two  centuries  and  more 
the  Flota  and  the  Galleons  took  their  orders 
from  Seville.  To  Vera  Cruz  came  the  Flota, 
that  port  being  the  natural  (or  licensed)  cen- 
ter of  the  American  treasure  and  the  magazine 
of  all  the  merchandise  of  New  Spain.     At  Vera 


EAST  BY  WEST  123 

Cruz  were  the  warehouses  to  supply  many 
Latin  Americans  with  what  they  must  have  to 
maintain  their  cost  of  living.  Upon  the  yearly 
arrival  of  the  Flota,  a  fair  was  held  at  Vera 
Cruz,  lasting  many  weeks.  But  of  all  the 
Spanish  fairs  that  at  Porto  Bello  —  Bel  Haven 
of  the  plate  fleet  —  was  the  greatest,  in  its 
business  and  its  pageantry.  The  galleons, 
touching  first  at  Carthagena  of  Colombia,  sup- 
plied from  thence  the  trade  of  that  shoulder 
of  South  America,  Terra  Firma  so  called. 
When  advice  was  received  at  Carthagena  that 
the  Peru  fleet  had  unloaded  at  Panama,  the 
galleons  set  sail  for  Porto  Bello,  across  the 
Isthmus  from  Panama.  As  soon  as  the  ships 
were  moored  in  the  harbor,  the  seamen  erected 
in  the  square  a  large  tent  of  sails,  where  they 
deposited  all  the  cargo,  each  owner's  goods 
marked  with  his  mark.  While  the  seamen  and 
the  European  traders  were  thus  employed,  the 
land  adjacent  grew  covered  with  droves  of  cat- 
tle from  Panama,  laden  with  chests  of  gold 
and  silver  on  account  of  the  merchants  of 
Peru.  When  the  ships  were  unloaded  and  the 
merchants  of  Peru,  with  the  President  of  Pan- 
ama, were  come  up,  the  formalities  of  the  fair 
commenced.  The  deputies  of  the  several  par- 
ties repaired  on  board  the  ships,  where  in  the 
presence  of  the  commander  of  the  galleons, 
acting  for  the  Europeans,  and  the  President  of 


124  EAST  BY  WEST 

Panama,  acting  for  the  Peruvians,  the  prices 
of  the  several  kinds  of  merchandise  were  fixed, 
the  contracts  signed  and  publicly  announced. 
After  this  every  merchant  began  disposing  of 
his  own  goods :  that  done,  the  Spanish  mer- 
chants embarked  their  chests  of  silver,  and 
those  of  Peru  sent  away  their  purchased  goods 
in  vessels  up  the  river  Chagres,  and  thus  the 
fair  of  Porto  Bello  ended.  Porto  Bello  was 
quiet  again,  except  for  its  dreadful  storms,  its 
multitudes  of  monkeys  and  a  few  tigers.  The 
wealth  of  America  had  been  exchanged  for  the 
manufactures  of  Europe.  House  rents  had 
been  high  as  the  fevers.  During  the  forty  days 
of  the  fair  a  rich  traffic  had  been  negotiated 
"  with  that  simplicity  of  transaction  and  that 
unbounded  confidence  which  accompany  exten- 
sive commerce."  The  Porto  Bello  fair  over 
(Isthmian  spectacle),  the  galleons  or  plate 
fleet  repaired  about  the  middle  of  June  to  the 
Havannah,  where  joining  the  flota  from  Vera 
Cruz,  the  plate  fleet  and  the  flota  thence  kept 
together  for  safety  home  to  Cadiz,  down  river 
from  Seville.  Nevertheless,  what,  as  the  stars 
were,  befel  the  plate  fleet  on  the  return  voy- 
age, how  many  rovers  of  the  sea  could  tell, 
were  they  summoned.  And  arrived  in  Spain 
the  plate,  despite  of  high  protection  of  the  traf- 
fic, was  subject  to  many  demands.  Work 
breeding  power,  from  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 


EAST  BY  WEST  125 

century  the  treasure  of  the  New  World  of 
America  may  be  said  not  to  have  belonged  to 
Spain. 

ACAPULCO  AND  THE  MANILA  SHIP 

An  excellent  opera,  then,  might  be  composed 
on  phases  of  the  Panama  and  other  western 
trade  of  Seville  long  before  the  Southern  Eu- 
ropeans-in-America  were  much  perturbed  by 
what  the  Northern  Europeans-in-America  were 
doing.  Those  were  non-competing  groups  for 
some  time.  In  further  illustration  may  be 
cited  the  business  of  the  Acapulco  fair,  which 
had  been  well  established  off  the  West  coast 
of  New  Spain  a  good  fifty  years  before  the 
English  and  the  Dutch  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
French)  turned  their  minds  effectually  to 
America.  After  Magellan  found  the  Philip- 
pines, trade  thither  was  carried  on  from  Callao 
in  Peru.  The  voyage  between  was  always  very 
tedious  and  troublesome:  Bacon  may  have 
based  thereon  the  opening  of  his  New  Atlantis 
— "  We  sailed  from  Peru  for  China  and 
Japan  by  the  South  Seas,  taking  with  us  vic- 
tuals for  twelve  months."  But  Spaniards  of 
New  Spain  having  conquered  the  island  of 
Luconia,  or  Luzon,  it  was  found  good  praxis 
to  change  the  course  from  the  Philippines  to 
east-north-east  for  better  winds  and  so  make 
the    harbor     of     the     Mexican     West     Coast. 


126  EAST  BY  WEST 

Hardly  had  Manila  been  set  going,  when  an 
active  Chinese  trade  to  that  port  began,  due 
to  the  energetic  commercial  policies  of  the  Ming 
dynasty  in  China.  For  many  years  the  only 
articles  permitted  for  export  from  the  Philip- 
pines to  Spanish  America  were  these  Chinese 
goods  from  Manila.  The  strict  regulation,  en- 
forced now  and  then,  was  that  Manila  exports 
to  America  should  be  limited  in  quantity  and 
destination,  and  that  return  cargoes  should  be 
so  much  silver  bullion  and  nothing  else.  Ma- 
nila and  Acapulco,  thus  conditioned,  did  a 
very  good  general  business  together  for  a 
great  many  years.  At  one  time,  early  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  merchants  of  Seville 
and  Cadiz,  and  even  the  governments  of  Old 
and  New  Spain,  grew  so  jealous  of  the  Philip- 
pines trade  that  it  was  proposed  to  abandon 
the  islands.  Spain  was  already  short  of 
money,  and  the  argument  was  that  Manila  took 
out  little  but  silver  from  the  Americas,  which 
silver  had  better  be  sent  home  to  Spain.  These 
matters  were  long  in  dispute  before  the  Span- 
ish Council  of  the  Indies.  INIeanwhile  Manila 
and  the  islands  prospered,  and  the  trade  be- 
came settled  on  the  basis  of  an  annual  ship, 
(or  nao  or  galleon),  plying  to  Acapulco, 
touching  at  the  "  Island  of  California."  The 
great  Manila  ships,  so  called  by  the  English 
—  Cavendish  and  Lord   Anson  made  prize   of 


EAST  BY  WEST  127 

two  of  them  —  were  built  at  Bagatao  not  far 
from  Manila,  where  there  was  a  fine  arsenal 
and  shipyard,  the  vessels  carrying  often  as 
many  as  six  hundred  people,  crew  and  passen- 
gers. The  captain's  emolument  was  enormous, 
sometimes  forty  thousand  pieces  of  eight  for 
the  voyage.  Acapulco,  like  Porto  Bello,  was 
a  very  inconsiderable  place  in  the  dead  season. 
The  region  was  one  of  tremblings  of  the  earth, 
and  the  climate,  besides,  was  prejudicial  to 
strangers.  But  upon  the  arrival  of  the  Manila 
ship,  the  town  was  populous  and  gay,  crowded 
with  the  richest  merchants  of  Mexico,  Peru, 
and  even  of  Chile,  who  provided  themselves  with 
tents,  and  formed  a  kind  of  large  encampment. 
This  was  the  Acapulco  fair  —  great  event  for 
more  than  two  centuries.  They  have  no  rain 
at  Acapulco  from  end  of  November  to  end  of 
May,  and  the  yearly  ships  were  timed  to  set 
sail  from  Manila  about  July  to  reach  Acapulco 
in  the  January  following.  Their  cargo  dis- 
posed of,  they  returned  for  Manila  some  time 
in  March,  and  arrived  there  generally  in  June. 
On  the  voyage  out  to  America  they  were  so 
sure  of  rains  between  the  thirtieth  and  fortieth 
parallels,  that  they  took  no  care  to  provide 
themselves  with  water,  but  fixed  mattings  up 
and  down  the  ship  in  the  rigging,  and  caught 
the  rains  in  jars  supplied  by  bamboo  troughs 
at    the   bottom   of    the   mats.     In    the   season 


128  EAST  BY  WEST 

there  was  naturally  a  brisk  trade  from  Aca- 
pulco  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  mules  and  pack 
horses  taking  up  the  goods  brought  from  the 
East,  what  was  not  kept  in  the  country  being 
forwarded  to  Vera  Cruz  on  the  "  North  Sea  " 
for  shipment  (regular  or  irregular)  by  the 
Flota  to  Spain. 

THE  DARIEN  COMPANY  OF  SCOTS 

By  ill  management,  as  causes  go,  Spain  went 
down,  and  by  good  management,  so  it  seemed, 
France  came  up.  "  No  Pyrenees  now,"  Louis 
XIV  said  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  there  was  a  general  alarm,  especially 
on  the  part  of  England  and  the  Dutch,  Dur- 
ing the  century  the  Dutch  had  fallen  off  in  the 
West ;  the  English  were  solidly  strengthened 
there;  and  the  French  had  made  a  fair  show 
of  dominion  extended  from  the  fur  countries  of 
their  Canada  down  the  Mississippi  to  the  Mex- 
ican gulf.  Should  France  control  all  that  was 
Spain's  off  the  Spanish  Main  and  in  the  Great 
South  Sea,  how  unbalanced  would  the  world  ap- 
pear. There  could  be  no  sounder  reasons  for 
a  general  war.  If  Spain  was  not  efficient,  there 
were  others  there  to  manage  Spain's  business. 
To  say  the  least,  the  through  East  and  West 
traffic  by  Mexico  and  Panama  had  its  allure- 
ments. Those  middle  regions,  between  the 
Americas,   and   the  trade  to   them,   offered  in- 


EAST  BY  WEST  129 

ducements.  Hence  the  Darien  Company,  to 
damage  and  take  over  the  Porto  Bello  fair; 
hence  the  South  Sea  Company,  to  encroach  as 
much  as  possible  upon  the  Spanish  trade  in  that 
territory.  And  hence  also  the  Mississippi 
Company  of  Crozat,  for  encroachment  both 
upon  Spain  and  England.  It  was  a  time  of  far 
reaching  plans  and  speculations,  and  very  com- 
plex reactions.  The  parties  to  these  ideals, 
with  their  confederates,  fought  everywhere  and 
came  to  some  sort  of  terms  as  Louis  XIV  was 
dying  and  the  House  of  Hanover  establishing. 
The  Duke  of  Marlborough  no  doubt  settled 
the  business,  and  if  he  took  his  commissions  it 
is  what  others  have  done,  with  applause.  Not 
to  rehearse  or  apologize,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  period  was  certainly  one  of  brilliant  jobs 
and  ideas.  Of  them  the  most  interesting  in 
some  respects  was  the  Darien  Company,  which 
came  to  nothing  in  itself  but  furthered  the  mak- 
ing of  the  United  States  of  England  and  Scot- 
land. William  Paterson,  the  projector  (and 
of  so  much  else)  had  been  in  the  West  Indies 
and  in  touch  there  with  the  growing  New  Eng- 
land trade  to  those  islands.  He  could  enlist 
his  fellow  Scots  easily,  their  commercial  status 
before  the  Union  not  being  acceptable;  and  he 
was  able  to  get  large  subscriptions  in  Ham- 
burg, which  the  English  minister  resident  there 
secured    the    canceling    of.     William    Paterson 


130  EAST  BY  WEST 

argued  that  by  his  plan  "  the  time  and  expense 
of  navigation  to  China,  Japan,  the  Spice 
Islands,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  East  In- 
dies would  be  lessened  more  than  half,  and  the 
consumption  of  European  commodities  soon  be 
more  than  doubled.  This  door  of  the  seas  and 
key  of  the  universe,  with  anything  of  a  reason- 
able management,  will  of  course  enable  its  pro- 
prietors to  give  laws  to  both  oceans  and  be- 
come arbitrators  of  the  commercial  world." 
His  policy,  however,  was  for  an  international 
usufruct.  Contra,  it  was  observed  that  all  the 
inducements  ]\Ir.  Paterson  could  offer  were 
grounds  the  more  for  the  opposition  of  estab- 
lished commerce.  At  their  Height  of  the 
World  the  Scots  Company  proposed  setting  up 
business  to  trade  with  Africa,  to  supply  Mex- 
ico and  Peru  with  whatever  they  wanted  from 
Europe,  and  within  four  or  five  months  to  bring 
the  riches  of  China  and  Japan  to  Europe,  and 
greatly  undersell  all  the  East  India  Companies 
—  very  practicable,  "  supposing  all  Europe 
but  themselves  to  be  fast  asleep."  It  was  not 
so.  The  Dutch  were  uneasy,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, for  their  contraband  trade  to  South 
America  from  Cura^oa.  The  French  consid- 
ered their  own  West  India  prospects  good. 
The  London  East  India  company  could  not 
but  look  askance.  And  the  Spanish  had  nom- 
inally the  trade  already  that  the  Darien  Com- 


EAST  BY  WEST  131 

pany  was  planning  for.  Mr.  Paterson  came 
to  Darien  with  his  colonists,  but  stronger  com- 
mercial organizations  worked  his  ruin  by  get- 
ting his  supplies  cut  off.  He  returned  to  Eng- 
land by  way  of  New  York,  and  just  before  King 
William's  death  submitted  to  him  a  proposal 
for  a  West  India  expedition,  holding  that  to  se- 
cure the  Spanish  monarchy  from  France  it 
would  be  more  feasible  to  make  Spain  follow 
the  fate  of  the  West  Indies  than  to  make  the 
West  Indies,  once  in  the  power  of  France,  fol- 
low the  fate  of  Spain.  King  William's  general 
war,  the  importance  of  which  he  knew  in  all  its 
bearings,  ended  rather  tamely  for  the  far  West. 
The  Pyrenees,  indeed,  had  not  been  allowed 
to  disappear,  but  in  the  West  the  outcome  was 
little  more  on  the  surface  than  a  modification 
of  the  Darien  Scheme  — viz :  Permission  to 
the  South  Sea  Company  to  trade  to  parts  of 
Spanish  America  by  an  annual  ship,  and  an 
Assiento  to  the  same  company  for  importing 
into  the  Spanish  West  Indies  four  thousand 
eight  hundred  blacks  annually  from  the  Guinea 
Coast,  both  contracts  for  thirty  years.  The 
trading  ship  now  and  then  did  a  good  business 
but  it  met  with  difficulties  and  was  not  at  all 
annual.  The  assiento  contract  was  never  very 
profitable.  Flemings  had  had  it,  Genoese  had 
had  it,  also  the  Portuguese  and  the  French  had 
been  Assientists.     It  was  said  that  the  British 


132  EAST  BY  WEST 

plenipotentiary  at  first  demanded  a  free  trade 
to  Spanish  America :  "  But  that  was  a  mere 
illusion,  since  it  would  have  enflamed  the  jeal- 
ousy of  all  the  rest  of  Europe." 

BRITISH  AMERICA  AND  BRITISH  INDIA 

The  treaty  of  Utrecht,  then,  left  Great 
Britain,  France,  and  Spain  all  good  Ameri- 
cans, (not  excluding  the  Portuguese),  and  it 
would  require  a  few  years  yet  to  show  how  the 
balance  might  be  moved.  This  treaty  also 
left  Great  Britain  and  France  pretty  good  In- 
dians. France,  instructed  by  Richelieu  and 
Colbert,  had  grown  to  some  degree  of  diplo- 
matic and  commercial  strength  in  India  by  the 
year  1713.  As  for  the  British,  it  is  almost 
enough  to  say,  that  in  1710  Governor  Pitt, 
grandfather  of  the  Great  Commoner,  returned 
to  England  rich,  with  the  Pitt  diamond  (£48,- 
000  to  begin  with)  in  his  son's  shoe, —  his  for- 
tune having  been  built  up  largely  by  interlop- 
ing, by  trading,  that  is,  outside  the  East  In- 
dia Company.  Thomas  Pitt,  "  the  Governor," 
was  of  a  haughty,  huflPying,  daring  temper, 
and  it  may  be  that  English  traders  in  India, 
regular  or  irregular,  had  brought  the  century 
through  to  such  good  advantage  by  reason  of 
tempers  like  Thomas  Pitt's.  The  Dutch  had 
grown  confinncd  as  masterly  peppercrs  and 
skilled  carriers  —  they  were  not  in  the  compe- 


EAST  BY  WEST  133 

tition  East  or  West.  The  treaty  of  Utrecht 
left  Great  Britain  and  France  in  both  quarters 
susceptible  of  Empire.  India  and  North 
America  —  the  Ganges  and  the  Mississippi :  to 
whom  the  politcal  control.''  The  policy  of 
muddling  is  not  one  of  an  indiscriminate  appli- 
cation. The  grandson  of  Governor  Pitt  came 
into  Parliament  for  Old  Sarum,  a  family  bor- 
ough, about  sixty  acres  of  plowed  land  with 
no  indweller.  Of  a  piece  with  such  methods 
was  General  Braddock's  expedition  towards  the 
Ohio  twenty  years  later,  and  British  strategy 
on  the  Continent  at  the  same  time.  "  We  are 
no  longer  a  nation,"  they  said  in  England. 
To  such  a  pass  had  good  business,  among  trad- 
ers and  administrators,  brought  the  country. 
Indeed,  muddling  as  we  know  the  term  has  come 
to  stand  for  belief  in  latent  character  strong 
to  the  point  of  general  negligence.  It  is  a 
dangerous  habit,  for  there  is  no  telling  where 
inspiration  may,  or  may  not,  start  up.  How- 
ever, at  a  very  black  moment  William  Pitt  stood 
forward,  saying:  "  I  am  sure  I  can  save  this 
country  and  nobody  else  can."  The  country 
was  glad  to  have  him  make  the  attempt,  and 
within  four  years  he  had  done  what  he  said. 
Saving  the  country  then  was  no  parochial 
task.  It  involved  the  establishment  of  the 
country  in  the  world.  Pittsylvania :  —  so 
might  much  of  North  America  have  been  called 


134  EAST  BY  WEST 

in  1760.  By  virtue  and  fortune  Great  Britain 
had  widened  out.  How  India  became  British 
why  stop  to  enquire?  East  as  West  the  answer 
is  —  muddling  and  miracle.  The  miracles 
worked  had  to  have  a  basis.  The  East  India 
Company's  servants,  Job  Chamock  and  his  fel- 
lows, held  on  somehow  until  the  brilliant  days 
of  conquest.  The  Virginians  of  New  England 
and  nearer  the  Chesapeake  persevered  from 
hard  beginnings  to  something  rather  like  glory. 
"  I  will  win  America  for  you  in  Germany,"  said 
Pitt.  But  America  could  have  been  won  by 
Pitt  nowhere,  except  for  the  British-Americans. 

APPRENTICESHIP  OF  THE  BRITISH 
AMERICANS 

The  British-Americans,  now  Pittsylvanians, 
had  learned  long  before  methods  of  trade  in 
what  the}'  had  and  in  what  they  had  not.  The 
Rhode  Islanders  knew  how  to  import  from 
Britain,  dry  goods  —  from  Africa,  slaves  — 
from  the  West  India  islands,  sugar,  coffee,  and 
molasses  —  and  from  the  neighboring  colonies, 
lumber  and  provisions.  With  the  bills  they 
obtained  in  Surinam  and  other  Dutch  West  In- 
dia settlements  (Cura^oa  for  example)  they 
paid  their  merchants  in  England ;  their  sugars 
they  carried  to  Holland ;  the  slaves  from  Africa 
they  took  to  the  West  Indies,  together  with  the 
lumber  and  provisions  procured  at  home ;  the 


EAST  BY  WEST  135 

rum  distilled  from  the  molasses  was  carried  to 
Africa  to  purchase  negroes ;  with  their  dry 
goods  from  England  they  trafficked  with  the 
neighboring  colonies.  By  this  kind  of  circuit- 
ous commerce  they  subsisted  and  grew  rich. 
Philadelphia  in  Pennsylvania  was  doing  an  ex- 
cellent trade  at  the  time  William  Pitt  was  com- 
posing sound  Latin  verse  at  Eaton,  as  he 
spelled  it.  Merchants  of  Philadelphia  sent  raft 
ships  of  timber  to  England,  and  other  ships ; 
sent  great  quantities  of  corn  in  the  shape  of 
wheat  to  Portugal  and  Spain,  frequently  sell- 
ing the  ship  as  well  as  cargo,  the  produce  of 
both  being  laid  out  in  English  goods  for  the 
home  market.  Philadelphia  traded  besides  to 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  and  to  all  the 
islands,  except  the  Spanish,  in  the  West  Indies 
—  as  also  to  the  Canaries,  Madeira,  and  the 
Azores ;  and  to  Newfoundland  for  fish,  exported 
to  Spain,  Portugal,  and  up  the  Mediterranean. 
Remittances  all  to  Great  Britain.  But  with- 
out their  trade  to  the  French  and  Dutch  Col- 
onies in  the  West  Indies,  they  should  have 
suflTered;  their  rum,  molasses  and  sugar  en- 
abling them  to  carry  on  their  traffic  with  the 
red  Indians.  At  the  same  time,  thirty  years 
before  1760,  Massachusetts  was  transacting  a 
very  similar  business,  but  in  the  circumstances 
was  more  engaged  in  the  fisheries,  whale  fishing 
and  other.     Massachusetts  Bay  shipping  early 


136  EAST  BY  WEST 

found  the  way  to  the  sugar  islands,  and  to  Hon- 
duras for  logwood.  British  merchants  and 
manufacturers  were  on  the  whole  pleased  with 
Northern  America  towards  the  year  1760. 
They  sent  out  thither  all  manner  of  wearing 
apparel,  woolen,  brass,  iron,  and  linen  manu- 
factures, and  East  India  goods  in  some  plenty. 
Arthur  Young  in  1772  called  the  Pennsylva- 
nians  the  Dutch  of  America.  The  term  was 
applied  also  to  the  New  Englanders.  Arthur 
Young,  in  his  "  Political  Essays,"  enlarges 
upon  the  importance  of  keeping  the  inhabitants 
of  colonies  absolutely  without  manufactures. 
But  he  adds,  "  There  is  some  amusement  at 
least  in  reflecting  upon  the  vast  consequences 
which  some  time  or  other  must  infallibly  at- 
tend the  colonizing  of  America.  This  immense 
continent  will  be  peopled  by  British  subjects, 
whose  language  and  National  Cliaracter  will  be 
the  same.  The  few  Frenchmen  in  it,  or  for- 
eigners imported,  will  be  confounded  by  the  gen- 
eral population,  and  the  whole  people  physic- 
ally speaking  one.  The  inhabitants  of  this 
potent  Empire,  so  far  from  being  in  the  least 
danger  from  the  attacks  of  any  other  quarter 
of  the  globe,  will  have  it  in  their  power  to  en- 
gross the  whole  commerce  of  it,  and  to  reign 
not  only  lords  of  America,  but  to  possess  in 
the  utmost  security  that  dominion  of  the  sea 
throughout  the  world  which  their  British  an- 


EAST  BY  WEST  137 

cestors  enjoyed  before  them."  Arthur  Young 
thought  that  by  a  good  system  of  politics  the 
allegiance  of  these  portentous  colonies  might  be 
retained  for  a  long  while;  after  they  had  set 
up  independence,  adverting  to  his  principles,  he 
thought  the  loss  to  Great  Britain  trifling, 
"  north  of  tobacco."  Burke  was,  on  the  whole, 
more  concerned.  In  his  youth  he  had  com- 
piled a  large  book  on  America,  and  in  1775  he 
said  he  could  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of 
liberty :  — "  Let  us  get  an  American  revenue 
as  we  have  got  an  American  empire  .  .  . ;  a 
great  empire  and  little  minds  go  ill  together." 

THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 

Undoubtedly,  the  British  at  home  were  mud- 
dling again.  The  contraband  trade  of  the 
Colonies,  in  West  India  waters  especially,  al- 
though useful  to  Great  Britain,  was  taking  on 
alarming  proportions.  The  estimate  has  been 
that  in  1775  Massachusetts  employed  more 
hands  in  navigation  and  in  shipbuilding  than 
in  agriculture;  and  that  most  American  mer- 
chants at  that  time  were  smugglers.  It  is 
written  that  a  fourth  part  of  the  signers  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  were  bred  to 
commerce,  to  the  command  of  ships  and  to  the 
contraband  trade.  John  Hancock  was  a  con- 
traband trader  dcymi  forisqice:  the  battle  of 
Lexington  took  place  on  the  day  appointed  by 


138  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  Admiralty  Court  of  Boston  for  hearing  the 
case  of  John  Hancock,  (John  Adams  his  at- 
torney), charged  with  evasion  of  customs  dues 
in  the  amount  of  five  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
After  the  colonies  had  been  made  securely  Brit- 
ish by  war,  the  policies  adopted  for  making 
them  secure  by  tariff  were  perhaps  a  little  blind. 
British  America  had  grown  very  fast  under  the 
Georges,  and  it  may  be  that  nothing  could  have 
been  done  to  avoid  a  break.  Very  little  that 
was  advised  was  done.  Small  matters  are 
awfully  important.  The  idea  of  the  East  In- 
dia Company  must  have  been  repugnant  to  a 
good  many  of  the  British  in  America.  The 
British  government  would  not  withdraw  its  tax 
on  tea  in  America,  and  yet  allowed  the  em- 
barrassed East  India  Company  to  send  its  teas 
out  to  America  free  of  any  duty  payable  by 
the  Company.  So,  a  little  by  the  maxim, 
"  love  me  love  my  dog,"  Great  Britain  lost  the 
colonies.  It  was,  after  all,  necessary  the  les- 
son should  be  well  taught  that  monopoly  of  a 
colony  trade  worth  anything  is  worth  nothing. 
And,  after  all,  a  man  born  in  1760  on  coming 
to  his  majority  faced  a  dismal  time  in  the  for- 
tunes of  Great  Britain.  Winning  America  in 
Bayreuth  and  other  small  German  circumscrip- 
tions had  not  been  found  practicable.  The 
Colonies,  lately  saved  from  France,  had  won 
themselves  in  France,  so  swiftly  the  wheel  had 


EAST  BY  WEST  139 

turned.  And  yet,  while  the  issue  was  deciding, 
the  inalienable  enterprise  of  Great  Britain  had 
gone  far  to  show  a  new  world  to  the  Americans 
of  the  North.  We  can  imagine  that  before  the 
Revolution,  Boston  and  Philadelphia  chafed 
somewhat  at  having  nothing  to  do  with  the 
East,  at  the  monopoly  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  A  few 
years  before  the  war  a  good  observer  wrote: 
"  If  ever  the  second  act  of  the  tragedy  of  Am- 
boyna,  or  anything  tending  towards  it,  comes 
in  play,  pray  heaven  we  may  not  have  a  James 
upon  the  throne."  And  urging  the  importance 
of  a  chain  of  British  settlements  across  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean,  from  Cape  Horn  to  Mindanao,  this 
observer  emphasized  the  corallary  of  new  dis- 
coveries in  the  Terra  Australis,  where  there 
should  be  much  earth  to  countervail  the  weight 
of  Asia. —  Captain  Cook  sailed  from  Plymouth, 
on  his  last  voyage,  12  July  1776 ;  with  him 
was  John  Ledyard  of  Connecticut.  They  were 
off  the  North  American  West  Coast  the  spring 
of  1778.  There  they  were  struck  with  the  mul- 
titudes of  sea-otters,  and  were  sure  that  for- 
tunes could  be  made  in  the  skins  of  them. 
Ledyard  returned  to  the  United  States  —  At- 
lantic Coast  Confederacy, —  and  convinced 
Robert  Morris  of  the  feasibility  of  trade  to  the 
Northwest  Coast.  Ledyard  had  no  luck,  but 
the  idea  was  a  taking  one.     Very  soon  Yan- 


140  EAST  BY  WEST 

kee  adventurers  were  up  and  down  the  West 
Coast  from  Nootka  to  Valparaiso,  and  trading 
furs  to  China  for  teas,  silks,  and  nankeens.  A 
new  people  had  come  into  the  East. 

BOSTON  IN  THE  EAST 

Miraculous  and  yet  altogether  in  keeping, 
this  sudden  swing  around  the  Horn  to  the 
North  West  and  the  Far  East  on  the  part  of 
the  Boston  ships,  as  those  ships  were  for  a  time 
best  known.  There  is  a  legend  that  a  year  or 
two  before  King  Charles  lost  his  head  to  the 
Commonwealth,  a  small  ship  left  the  port  of 
New  Haven  in  Connecticut  for  England.  A 
long  time  went  by,  and  there  was  no  news. 
Then  upon  a  day  after  a  great  thunderstorm, 
about  an  hour  before  sunset,  a  ship  of  like  di- 
mensions appeared  in  the  air,  with  her  canvas 
and  colors  abroad  coming  up  the  harbor 
against  the  wind  for  the  space  of  an  hour. 
Man}',  as  the  narrative  goes,  were  drawn  to 
behold  this  great  work  of  God,  yea,  the  very 
children  cried  out,  "  There  is  a  brave  ship !  " 
When  so  near  that  a  man  might  cast  a  stone 
on  board  of  her,  her  maintop  seemed  blown  off, 
then  her  mizzentop,  then  her  masting  seemed 
blown  away  by  the  board  —  she  overcast,  and 
so  vanished  into  a  smoking  cloud.  That  was 
the  news, —  Ports  like  that,  with  such  visions, 
and   that  harbored  witches,  had  a   future,  in- 


EAST  BY  WEST  141 

dubitably.  Men  and  ships  of  the  New  Eng- 
land had  learned  the  seas.  The  New  England 
had  grown  virtually  into  independence  largely 
by  the  sea.  War  came  on  because  of  a  ham- 
pering of  the  sea,  and  during  the  war  the 
soundest  strokes  for  freedom  were  perhaps  de- 
livered by  the  armed  trading  ships  of  the  New 
Englanders.  Strength  and  consciousness  of 
strength  grew  every  waj',  and  after  the  war  men 
bred  to  the  sea  as  whalers,  West  India  trad- 
ers, contraband  traders,  privateers,  knowing 
immediately  that  their  opportunities  were  en- 
larged, at  once  seized  upon  them  and  found  the 
way  to  the  East.  They  liked  the  idea  of  doing 
business  with  all  the  world.  The  East  had 
been  something  of  a  vacuum  to  them  which  was 
now  quite  abhorrent.  It  is  an  idle  question 
how  much  support  they  got  from  British  trad- 
ers inimical  to  the  great  London  Companies. 
Nor  is  it  worth  itemizing  who  sent  out  the  first 
vessels.  There  was  impetus  from  several  quar- 
ters. Philadephia  and  New  York  were  pleased 
with  Captain  Cook's  and  John  Ledyard's  de- 
ductions for  the  North  West  Coast :  very  soon 
there  was  an  enthusiasm  for  that  coast  in  the 
states  of  the  East.  West  India  traders  and 
privateers,  like  the  Derbys  of  Salem,  saw  their 
account  in  a  direct  Russia  and  a  direct  East 
India  trade.  Old  East  Indians  like  John 
O'Donnell  of  Baltimore,  began  a  China  trade. 


142  EAST  BY  WEST 

O'Donnell,  having  brought  in  a  full  cargo  of 
China  goods,  held  out  to  the  Congress,  in  1786, 
the  prospect  of  supplying  not  only  their  own 
citizens  but  also  those  of  the  West  Indies  and 
the  Spanish  mainland  with  Asiatic  products, 
"  which  before  they  had  through  the  hands  of 
monopolizing  and  avaricious  European  Com- 
panies." The  same  year  Samuel  Shaw,  in  his 
report  to  Secretary  Jay  of  his  voyage  as  super- 
cargo in  the  Empress  of  CMna  to  Canton, 
mentioned  the  goodwill  of  the  Chinese  them- 
selves — "  The  Chinese  were  very  indulgent  to 
us,  though  our  being  the  first  American  ships 
that  had  ever  visited  China,  it  was  some  time 
before  they  could  fully  comprehend  the  distinc- 
tion between  Englishmen  and  us.  They  styled 
us  the  New  People;  and  when  by  the  map  we 
conveyed  to  them  an  idea  of  the  extent  of  our 
country,  with  its  present  and  increasing  popu- 
lation, they  were  highly  pleased  at  the  pros- 
pect of  so  considerable  a  market  for  the  pro- 
ductions of  theirs."  How  necessarily  like  all 
this  was  to  the  first  beginnings  of  the  Portu- 
guese, the  Dutch,  and  the  English  in  the  East. 

SALEM,  BOSTON,  AND  OTHER  PORTS 

Not  long  before  his  death,  Washington  said: 
"  If  we  can  hold  together  for  twenty  years  we 
are  secure."  The  debate  would  not  be  out  of 
the  question  as  to  whether  the  United  States 


EAST  BY  WEST  143 

could  have  subsisted  but  for  the  phenomena  of 
Europe  during  the  quarter  century  following 
the  Constitution  of  1789.  The  Jay  treaty, 
with  its  fortunate  rapprochements  facilitated 
the  opening  of  the  North  American  West,  and 
made  commerce  with  the  far  East  simpler. 
Relations  with  Great  Britain  continued  un- 
stable, but,  as  the  conditions  were,  the  money 
of  Stephen  Girard,  accumulated  by  1812,  in  the 
West  India  and  East  India  trade,  was  a  use- 
ful factor  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  war 
formally  on  with  1812,  by  which  in  1815  the 
United  States  found  themselves.  Capital 
vastly  increased  in  the  United  States  during  the 
quarter  century  after  1789,  and  the  new  com- 
merce with  the  East,  in  all  its  branches,  helped 
much  to  that  end.  What  the  dangers  of  cap- 
ital precisely  are  nobody  has  determined: 
granting  dangers  there,  capital  as  the  upshot 
of  exuberant  energy,  often  right  enough,  must 
be  defended,  it  is  evident.  Who  without  a  has- 
tening of  the  pulse  can  follow  the  fortunes  of 
the  House  of  Derby  of  Salem,  for  near  a  cen- 
tury before  and  after  1800?  Captain  Rich- 
ard, the  founder,  sent  small  vessels  of  fifty  to 
a  hundred  tons  up  and  down  his  own  coasts, 
into  the  West  Indies,  to  the  Madeiras  and 
Spain ;  his  sons  dispatched  ships  about  the 
world,  to  the  Columbia  River,  the  East  Coast 
of  Africa,  Batavia,  and  Canton ;  his  grandson. 


144  EAST  BY  WEST 

just  out  of  Harvard,  was  placed  in  England 
and  on  the  continent  to  learn  methods  of  trade 
to  the  East,  learned  fast  and  applied  his  knowl- 
edge. It  was  this  house  that  did  most  to  give 
Salem  for  years  its  lucrative  business  with  Can- 
ton, India,  the  East  Indies  of  the  Dutch,  Ma- 
nila, Mocha,  Isle  of  France,  Madagascar,  Zan- 
zibar,— "  when  India  was  a  new  region  and 
only  Salem  knew  the  way  there,"  as  Hawthorne 
said,  who  could  make  romance  from  the  Cus- 
tom House.  Thomas  Perkins,  starting  mainly 
as  supercargo  for  the  Derbys  in  1789,  within 
a  few  years  established  at  Boston  a  very  solid 
house  trading  to  the  North  West  Coast  and 
China.  This  American  merchant,  Thomas 
Handasyd  Perkins,  of  symmetrical  mind  and 
person,  courteous,  greatly  skilled  at  diplomacy, 
made  Boston,  more  than  any  of  its  traders 
then,  the  port  so  long  of  the  Boston  Ships  in 
the  sea-otter  and  Cluna  trade.  The  Derbys 
schooled  a  good  many  merchants  and  traders 
of  the  broad  outlook,  among  them  Richard 
Cleveland,  (his  wise  narrative  must  be  consulted 
for  these  times),  who  not  seldom  beginning  a 
voyage  with  a  few  thousand  dollars  multiplied 
them  fifty  fold  in  roundabout  cruising  —  say, 
from  Havre  round  Africa  to  the  West  Coast, 
Canton,  and  back  home  to  Salem.  With  1789, 
Girard,  Wain,  and  Ralston  of  Philadelphia 
were  at  their  middle  point  of  life  and  making 


EAST  BY  WEST  145 

money  fast  in  the  four  seas.  Stephen  Girard 
would  soon  be  writing  methodically  to  his  su- 
percargoes — "  It  is  my  habit  to  dispatch  my 
ships  for  Batavia  from  this  port,  Liverpool, 
or  Amsterdam  as  circumstances  render  it  con- 
venient." Dr.  Franklin  knew  earlier,  but  with 
1789  the  North  Atlantic  men  of  affairs  at  sea 
knew  generally  how  to  use  and  how  to  avoid 
the  Gulf  Stream.  That  was  a  great  deal  on 
one  side.  And  on  the  other  side,  the  longest 
voyage  there  was,  from  Boston  to  Nootka  and 
higher  up,  was  a  thing  achieved,  its  feasibil- 
ities known.  The  Spaniards  of  Mexico  had  be- 
gun to  look  into  the  Coast  to  the  North  of 
them:  already  they  had  a  settlement  at  San 
Francisco,  Franciscan  in  a  way,  where  they 
were  careful  a  little  after  to  stipulate  that 
their  Manila  ships  should  not  trade.  The  com- 
mandant at  San  Francisco  received  an  order 
from  his  governor,  dated  May  1789,  Califor- 
nia's first  recognition  of  the  United  States :  — 
"  Should  there  arrive  at  the  port  a  ship  named 
Columbia,  which  they  say  belongs  to  General 
Washington  of  the  American  State,  and  which 
sailed  from  Boston  in  September  1787  with  the 
design  of  making  discoveries  and  inspecting  the 
establishments  of  the  Russians  on  the  Northern 
coasts  of  this  peninsula,  you  will  take  meas- 
ures to  secure  this  vessel  and  all  the  people  on 
board,  with  discretion,  tact,  cleverness  and  cau- 


146  EAST  BY  WEST 

tion."  The  Columbia  kept  clear  of  San  Fran- 
cisco on  that  voyage.  Soon  after,  Captain 
Vancouver  was  hospitably  entertained  in  port. 
The  good  ship  United  States  had  been  launched. 
It  was  by  now  in  touch  with  the  East,  and  met  at 
once  in  those  far  western  waters,  Spain,  Great 
Britain,  and  Russia. 

On  the  other  side  the  United  States  faced 
France,  and  much  of  Europe  to  boot,  at  the 
outset  of  a  revolution  of  twenty-five  years. 
It  was  what  is  called  a  romantic  time  —  from 
which  the  Americas  were  to  come  palpably 
changed.  Americans  of  the  North,  interested 
in  all  that  furthered  their  new  commercial  life, 
were  building  excellent  vessels.  They  made 
the  mistake  of  using  green  white  oak  for  their 
first  great  East  Indiama/n,  of  1789,  but  they 
learned  on  all  hands,  and  with  not  much  re- 
sort to  academic  science.  Their  Baltimore 
clipper  schooners,  for  instance,  were  soon 
known  to  be  extraordinary ;  their  vessels  in  gen- 
eral, with  ingenious  blocks  and  miscellaneous 
contrivances,  could  sail  faster,  carry  more 
cargo  in  proportion  to  registered  tonnage,  and 
with  smaller  crews,  than  others.  The  Chesa- 
peake schooners,  broad  of  beam  before  the  cen- 
ter above  the  water  line,  sharp  in  the  bow, 
deep  aft,  long  and  low,  presented  admirable 
forms  for  capacity,  for  stability  to  sustain  a 


EAST  BY  WEST  147 

large  amount  of  canvas,  for  great  speed,  and 
for  holding  their  course  on  a  wind  with  little 
drifting  to  leeward.  Their  masts  were  long 
and  slender,  sails  unusually  large  for  vessels 
of  the  size,  and  of  such  true  cut  and  perfect 
set  that  no  portion  of  the  propelling  effect  of 
the  breeze  that  reached  them  was  wasted. 
Close  hauled,  they  drew  well  with  the  vessel 
running  within  40°  or  45°  of  the  wind,  while 
the  best  equipped  frigate  would  be  sharp  set 
at  60°.  In  these  items  therefore,  when  the 
revolution  in  Europe  began,  and  continued,  the 
sea-faring  America  of  the  North  Atlantic  was 
in  fit  condition.  The  oceans  being  taken  and 
chained  by  one  strong  nation,  and  there  being 
hardly  any  neutral  nation  but  that  of  the  late 
British-American  colonies,  there  was  as  matter 
of  course  a  flourishing  trade  in  American  bot- 
toms. It  was  charged  that  valuable  cargoes  of 
bullion  and  specie  and  spices  were  nominally 
purchased  by  Americans,  in  the  eastern  colonies 
of  the  enemies  of  Great  Britain  and  wafted 
under  the  American  flag  to  the  real  hostile  pro- 
prietors. It  was  charged  that  one  single 
American  house  contracted  for  the  whole  of  the 
merchandise  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Com- 
pany at  Batavia,  amounting  to  no  less  a  sum 
than  a  million  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds 
sterling.  "  We  defend  our  colonies,"  said  the 
author  of  "  War  in  Disguise,"  "  at  a  vast  ex- 


148  EAST  BY  WEST 

pense, —  we  maintain,  at  a  still  greater  ex- 
pense, an  irresistible  navy, —  we  chase  the  flag 
of  every  enemy  from  every  sea,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  Americans  are  able,  from  the  superior 
safety  and  cheapness  of  their  new-found  navi- 
gation, to  undersell  us  in  the  continental 
markets  of  Europe."  The  American  merchant 
marine  prospered  conspicuously,  could  scarcely 
help  doing  so.  Duties  paid  at  Salem  alone  for 
nine  years  after  1801,  were  over  7,000,000  dol- 
lars. Salem  began  its  wonderful  business,  long 
maintained,  in  the  reshipment  of  pepper. 
British  courts  had  to  revise  their  opinions  on 
the  subject  of  what  made  a  continuous  voyage. 
Then  Orders  in  Council,  Berlin  and  Milan  de- 
crees, and  Embargo  bills  followed  as  of  course 
—  and  President  Madison's  message  to  Con- 
gress, suggesting  "  an  armor  and  an  attitude 
demanded  by  the  crisis."  A  few  months  after- 
wards, Stephen  Girard's  ship  Montesquieu 
coming  into  the  Delaware  was  captured  by  a 
British  frigate.  The  invoice  cargo  of  the 
prize  was  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  teas, 
nankeens  and  silks  from  Canton.  The  captain 
of  the  frigate,  instead  of  risking  recapture  on 
his  way  to  a  British  port,  dispatched  a  flag  of 
truce  to  Mr.  Girard,  who  replied  by  sending 
from  his  bank  ninety-three  thousand  dollars  in 
doubloons.  The  cargo,  its  value  now  advanced, 
added   half   a   million    to    the   Girard   account. 


EAST  BY  WEST  149 

This  story  is  proof  of  what  the  American 
North  Atlantic  could  do.  Mr,  Girard  might 
have  lost  his  cargo,  but  for  the  fast  privateers 
the  captain  of  the  frigate  dreaded.  By  the  end 
of  1814  those  fast  sailing  vessels,  armate  i/n 
mercanzia,  had  made  prize  of  more  than  seven- 
ten  hundred  British  merchantmen,  and  Captain 
David  Porter  in  the  Essex  (celebrated  case  of 
the  continuous  voyage  of  the  Essex)  had  swept 
the  South  Seas  of  British  whalers. 

1815  AND  THE  CHINA  TRADE 

After  the  war,  Mr.  Perkins  of  Boston  said: 
"  Embargoes  and  non-intercourse,  with  politi- 
cal and  other  causes  of  embarrassment,  crossed 
our  path,  but  we  kept  our  trade  with  China." 
That  China  trade  involved  the  North  West 
Coast  and  California.  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
changed  all  the  Americas, —  in  the  north  bring- 
ing California  by  map  much  closer  to  the 
United  States,  and  weakening  the  hold  of  Spain 
on  California.  In  1806,  Spain  was  obliged  to 
send  to  Archibald  Gracie,  (merchant  of  New 
York  trading  to  the  world),  bills  on  Vera  Cruz 
for  collection  to  the  amount  of  $10,000,000. 
The  package  of  bills  was  upset  in  a  small  boat 
in  New  York  harbor,  found  a  fortnight  later  off 
New  Jersey,  dried,  and  exactly  collected.  The 
plate  fleet  was  then  of  American  ships.  As  for 
the  Manila  ship,  Great  Britain  did  away  with 


150  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  old  order  at  Manila  in  1814,  and  the  last 
Manila  ship  sailed  from  Acapulco  in  1815.  At 
that  time  a  Boston  trader  to  California  was 
constrained  to  go  around  the  Horn,  and  Spain 
reached  California  strictly  by  regulation  from 
San  Bias,  staple  port  to  the  north  of  Aca- 
pulco. A  year  or  two  after  1800,  the  brig 
Lelia  Byrd,  a  "  Boston  Ship  "  out  of  Norfolk 
in  Virginia  for  Hamburg  and  thence  to  Califor- 
nia, got  1,600  otter  skins  at  San  Bias,  went  up 
the  coast  trading  and  smuggling  to  San  Diego, 
where  the  crew  had  a  small  battle  with  the 
Spanish  customs  force,  and  kept  on  to  China, 
selling  the  furs  there.  The  captain  of  the 
Lelia  Byrd,  William  Shaler,  published  in  1808 
the  journal  of  his  voyage,  the  first  extended 
account  of  California  printed  in  the  United 
States.  Another  ship  trading  from  Sitka  to 
San  Diego,  on  shares  with  the  Russians  for 
furs,  brought  news  the  year  of  Captain  Shaler's 
voyage  (1804)  that  a  Philadelphia  American 
was  asking  Congress  for  forty  thousand  men 
with  which  to  take  Mexico.  There  was  a  lively 
dread  in  INIexico  of  Yankee  schemes,  and  orders 
were  framed  there  to  close  California  to  all  but 
Spanish  mail  ships.  The  times  were  revolu- 
tionary in  general,  and  when  Mexico  fell  away 
from  Spain  there  were  those  in  un-republican 
California  who  would  not  have  been  displeased 
at  annexation  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  under 


EAST  BY  WEST  151 

an  Hawaiian  sovereign.  Captain  William 
Shaler  had  printed  a  broad  hint  in  his  journal 
that  California  should  be  an  easy  prey  for  some 
foreign  nation.  The  Nation  of  Boston  was  as 
strong  as  any  on  that  coast  in  1815.  The 
East  India  Company  had  possibly  hampered 
British  traders  there.  It  was  even  said  that 
soon  after  1815,  Boston  traders  carried  to  the 
Columbia  River  all  the  stores  needed  by  the 
western  British  establishments,  and  took  away 
to  Canton  all  the  furs  obtained  by  the  British 
company.  The  logic  of  it  was  that  some  sort 
of  Astoria  was  inevitable.  A  British  reviewer 
of  those  years  gives  a  rather  disparaging  turn 
to  Yankee  adventure  on  the  North  West  coast: 
"  They  set  out  with  a  few  trinkets.  In  the 
Southern  Pacific  they  pick  up  a  few  seal  skins 
and  perhaps  a  few  butts  of  oil ;  at  the  Gallipa- 
gos  they  lay  in  turtle,  of  which  they  preserve 
the  shells ;  at  Valparaiso  they  raise  a  few  dol- 
lars in  exchange  for  European  articles ;  at 
Nootka  and  other  parts  of  the  North  West 
Coast  they  traffic  with  the  natives  for  furs, 
which  when  winter  commences  they  carry  to  the 
Sandwich  Islands  to  dry  and  preserve  from  ver- 
min ;  here  they  leave  their  own  people  to  take 
care  of  them,  and  take  on  in  the  Spring  native 
crews  for  the  North  West  Coast,  in  search  of 
more  furs.  The  remainder  of  their  cargo  they 
make  up  of  sandal  Avood,  tortoise  shell,  shark 


152  EAST  BY  WEST 

fins,  and  pearls  of  an  inferior  sort;  and  with 
these  and  their  dollars  they  purchase  tea,  silks, 
and  nankeens,  and  thus  complete  their  voyage 
in  the  course  of  two  or  three  years."  That  was 
doubtless  an  aspect  of  the  trade.  There  was 
plenty  of  capital  in  it.  Astoria  sprang  out  of 
capital  in  it.  For  example,  an  outfit  of  $50,- 
000  at  most  gave  a  gross  return  of  $284,000  to 
Messrs.  Bryant  and  Sturgis  of  Boston.  The 
basis  of  the  trade  was  manufactures  for  raw 
materials.  The  California  padres  collected 
sea-otter  skins  a  little  and  sold  them  to  the 
"  Boston  Americans  "  contraband,  a  harmless 
pursuit.  The  trade  nearly  extinguished  the 
sea-otter  of  the  North  West  not  long  after 
1815;  and  with  the  raw  materials  went  the 
trade.  The  sea-otter  had  answered  the  pur- 
pose, perhaps. 

FROM  MECCA  TO  SANTA  FE 

1815  was  a  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  mat- 
ter of  interest  to  observe  here  and  there  what 
the  fund  of  capital,  money  and  experience, 
accumulated  then  has  since  wrought  out. 
How  might  a  Cashmere  shawl  reach  the  North- 
ern provinces  of  Mexico  about  that  time?  By 
Acapulco  rarely ;  almost  certainly  by  Vera 
Cruz,  sole  port  for  commerce  with  Europe. 
To  Vera  Cruz  a  Cashmere  shawl  might  easily 
come  from  Marseilles,  long  in  close  touch  with 


EAST  BY  WEST  155 

Aleppo  —  for  Marseilles  made  friends  with  the 
Turk  when  Mexico  was  in  seisin  to  Charles  V. 
At  Aleppo  the  European  or  Frank  factories, 
towards  1815,  were  English,  French,  Venetian, 
Dutch,  and  Tuscan ;  the  language  in  common 
use  there  was  the  Italian.  These  factors 
traded  with  the  Damascus  Caravan  —  as  many 
as  fifty  thousand  pilgrims  a  year  from  Aleppo 
to  Damascus,  destined  at  last  for  Mecca.  A 
Cashmere  shawl  might  come  that  way,  the  pil- 
grims always  trading  on  the  road.  But 
Aleppo  dealt  direct  with  Bagdad  and  Bassora, 
and  Cashmere  shawls  were  articles  of  import 
from  India  to  Bassora  up  the  Persian  Gulf. 
From  Aleppo,  a  package  of  shawls  would  be 
sent  down  to  the  port  of  Scanderoon,  for  ship- 
ment, say,  to  Marseilles,  Spain,  and  Vera  Cruz. 
At  least,  when  Major  Pike  was  at  Santa  Fe  a 
few  years  before  1815,  the  only  regular  channel 
for  Cashmere  shawls  to  New  Mexico  was  by 
Vera  Cruz  and  the  ridge  road  to  the  North, 
through  Chihuahua  to  the  Paso  del  Norte. 
With  1815  changes  were  imminent.  The 
North  East  American  traders  had  powerfully 
affected  the  East  India  Company  at  London, 
and  were  to  affect  it  to  the  end.  The  British 
threw  open  their  own  trade  to  India,  and  threw 
open  the  trade  of  the  Spanish  Manila.  The 
South  Seas  were  a  good  deal  liberalized.  The 
American    continents    felt    results.     In    half    a 


154  EAST  BY  WEST 

dozen  years  Mexico  would  be  held  for  inde- 
pendent, and  the  old  Spanish  system  gone  — 
that  was,  no  regular  channel  for  dry  goods  and 
other  manufactures  except  through  a  port  or 
two.  Mexico  independent,  the  Santa  Fe  trade 
with  the  United  States  began  —  an  outgrowth 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley  fur  companies, — 
Spanish,  French,  British,  British-American, 
American  —  with  headquarters  at  St.  Louis. 
Like  the  Aleppo-Damascus  caravan,  this  Mis- 
souri-Santa Fe  caravan  had  its  chief  or  aga  or 
caravan-bachi,  whose  authority  was  absolute. 
The  Santa  Fe  caravan  had  desert  to  cross,  it 
passed  from  water  to  water.  The  long  lines 
of  its  wagons,  or  "  Dearborn  carriages,"  were 
defended  by  skirmishing  cavalry ;  at  night  they 
formed  a  hollow  wagon  square,  with  fires 
around.  Approaching  Santa  Fc,  couriers 
went  ahead  to  make  arrangements  and  placate 
the  custom  house.  Coming  into  the  town  each 
driver  of  a  wagon  made  a  noise  with  his  whip, 
to  the  last  end  of  which  a  new  cracker  had  been 
expressly  fixed.  Within  a  few  years  the  total 
of  the  trade  for  a  year  was  not  much  below  $2,- 
000,000,  in  which  cottons  (American  cottons) 
figured  largely. 

OREGON  AND  CALIFORNIA 

Tht>     Santa    Fe     caravan     (freight     thither 
around  $10  the   cwt.)    set  out   for  the  South 


EAST  BY  WEST  155 

West  from  a  point  some  distance  up  the  Mis- 
souri from  St.  Louis.  Here,  a  little  later,  the 
beaten  Oregon  Trail  began,  known  as  a  path 
since  the  hard  journey  of  Lewis  and  Clark.  It 
is  the  further  modification  of  time  and  space 
and  the  new  manipulation  of  matter  that  have 
given  character  to  the  century  past.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  got  his  steamboat  down  the  Ohio  in 
1811.  It  was  at  once  supposed  that  the  Mis- 
souri might  be  similarly  made  use  of,  and  if  the 
Missouri,  why  not  the  Columbia?  Boston 
ships  were  going  to  California.  Merchants 
were  trading  direct  to  Santa  Fe  through  St. 
Louis.  Trappers  had  found  their  way  from 
St.  Louis  across  the  mountains  to  the  Pacific. 
St.  Louis  looked  out  to  the  West  upon  Spain: 
Missouri  brought  pressure  to  bear  in  the  mat- 
ter of  connecting  the  United  States  by  land 
with  the  Pacific.  As  early  as  1818  the  Oregon 
Question  had  taken  shape  —  Mr.  Benton  of 
Missouri,  prefacing  his  remarks  then  by  a  brief 
liistory  of  the  trade  of  all  nations  to  India,  sug- 
gested a  river  navigation  ascending  the  Mis- 
souri, a  land  carriage  across  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, a  river  navigation  down  the  Columbia, 
and  a  sea  voyage  across  the  North  Pacific : 
"  An  open  channel  to  Asia,  short,  direct,  safe, 
cheap,  and  exclusively  American."  The  fab- 
ric of  Astoria  was  persistent.  When  Congress 
took  up  the  proposals  for  occupying  the  mouth 


156  EAST  BY  WEST 

of  the  Columbia,  the  bill  found  pessimists  and 
optimists  in  debate  —  was  not  the  country 
being  drained  already  of  mpney  by  the  China 
trade?  Mr.  Floyd  of  Virginia  and  Mr.  Golden 
of  New  York  were  very  cogent  and  far-sighted 
in  support  of  the  bill, —  year  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  Mr.  Golden,  like  Mr.  Floyd,  put 
stress  upon  the  China  trade,  showing  how  it  was 
not  the  impoverisher  that  Pliny  thought  the 
Indian  was.  Mr.  Golden  said:  "  Sir,  I  do 
verily  believe  that  in  twenty  years,  and  if  not 
in  twenty,  in  fifty  years,  a  person  setting  out 
from  London  to  go  to  India  will  find  New  York, 
Albany,  and  Sandusky  post  towns  on  his  route. 
By  pursuing  continually  nearly  a  west  course, 
he  will  cross  the  Atlantic,  reach  Albany,  fol- 
low the  New  York  canal,  embark  on  Lake  Erie, 
pass  through  the  Ohio  canal,  and  pursue  the 
Ohio,  Mississippi  and  Missouri  to  the  foot  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  over  which  he  will  tra- 
verse a  turnpike  of  only  seventy-five  miles, 
which  will  bring  him  to  the  waters  of  the  Col- 
umbia ;  upon  these  he  will  reach  the  Pacific,  and 
from  thence  he  will  cross  a  ferry  to  the  Asiatic 
continent.  Sir,  I  am  aware  that  by  many  these 
will  be  considered  as  extravagant  and  visionary 
ideas.  But,  let  me  ask,  are  they  more  extrava- 
gant than  it  would  have  been,  only  ten  years 
ago,  to  predict  that  the  waters  of  the  Great 
Lakes  would  be  emptied   into   the  Atlantic   at 


EAST  BY  WEST  157 

New  York?"  The  fancy  of  DeWitt  Clinton, 
author  of  the  New  York  Canal,  was  slightly 
more  startling.  Nonplussed  by  the  ancient 
fortresses  of  the  South  Shore  of  Lake  Erie,  he 
thought  how  if  some  day  Asia  should  "  revenge 
upon  our  posterity  the  injuries  we  have  inflicted 
upon  her  sons  " —  meaning  that  he  took  the  red 
Indians  to  be  Asiatics,  and  that  Asiatics  might 
at  some  time,  "  after  subverting  the  neighbor- 
ing despotisms  of  the  old  world,  bend  their 
course  toward  European  America." 

THE  AMERICAN  EAGLE  — 1846 

The  North  American  West  was  diverging  to 
1846.  Missouri  was  an  uncompromising  state 
with  regard  to  the  West.  The  Austins  had 
been  drawn  from  the  lead  mines  of  Virginia  to 
the  lead  mines  of  Missouri,  and  thence  to  the 
Texas  country  where  under  a  republican  reg- 
ime it  was  desired  that  American  energy  should 
develop  the  resources.  Captain  Fremont,  mar- 
ried to  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Benton  of  Missouri, 
got  his  father-in-law  to  send  him  out  on  gov- 
ernment scientific  expeditions  to  Oregon  and 
California.  Captain  Sutter  had  been  lead 
from  Switzerland  through  France  to  the  Santa 
Fe  trade,  and  then  to  the  Sandwich  Islands  and 
his  "  New  Helvetia  "  in  California.  St.  Louis 
gave  Captain  Sutter  his  far-Western  look :  and 
it  is  not  saying  too  much  to  say  that,  among 


158  EAST  BY  WEST 

the  gente  de  razon  of  California,  Captain  Sut- 
ter and  the  Boston  colony  did  most  to  change 
the  allegiance  of  the  province.  New  Helvetia, 
with  its  hospitality,  furs,  hides  and  tallow,  was 
in  good  touch  with  the  patently  American  col- 
ony, looking  back  to  Boston.  Even  in  1842 
Commodore  Ap  Catesby  Jones  served  sharp 
notice  of  a  day  that  the  United  States  was  not 
going  to  be  forestalled  in  California,  no  matter 
what  the  vaguely  manifest  destinies  of  other 
powers.  So  the  Spring  of  1846  was  a  busy 
season  at  St.  Louis.  The  young  Parkman 
found  emigrants  there  from  every  part  of  the 
country  preparing  for  the  journey  to  Oregon 
and  California,  and  an  unusual  number  of 
traders  making  ready  their  wagons  and  outfits 
for  Santa  Fe.  Those  bound  for  California 
were  often  persons  of  wealth.  The  hotels  were 
crowded,  and  the  gunsmiths  and  saddlers  were 
kept  constantly  at  work  providing  arms  and 
equipment  for  the  different  parties  of  travelers. 
Almost  every  day  steamboats  were  casting  off 
from  the  levee,  and  passing  up  the  Missouri, 
crowded  with  passengers  on  their  way  to  the 
frontier.  Many  of  them  were  to  change  the 
frontier:  others  in  Missouri  at  the  time  meant 
certainly  to  change  the  frontier.  Young  Mr. 
Parkman,  on  his  vacation,  went  one  way 
towards  the  end  of  April.     In  June  the  Army 


EAST  BY  WEST  159 

of  the  West  set  out  from  Missouri  for  Santa 
Fe,  taking  with  it  the  annual  caravan,  this  year 
414  wagons  heavily  laden  with  dry  goods  for 
the  markets  of  Santa  Fe  and  Chihuahua. 
"  The  boundless  plains,  lying  in  ridges  of  wavy 
green  not  unlike  the  ocean,  seemed  to  unite  with 
the  heavens  in  the  distant  horizon.  As  far  as 
vision  could  penetrate,  the  long  lines  of  cavalry, 
the  gay  fluttering  of  lances,  and  the  canvas 
covered  wagons  of  the  merchant  train  glisten- 
ing in  the  distance,  might  be  seen  winding  their 
tortuous  way."  The  historian  of  this  expedi- 
tion, John  Hughes,  was  not  long  out  of  college 
himself.  He  says  Santa  Fe  traders  told  him, 
that  a  few  months  earlier,  on  their  road  back  to 
Missouri,  they  beheld  just  after  a  storm  and  a 
little  before  sunset,  the  perfectly  distinct  image 
of  the  "  bird  of  liberty,"  the  American  eagle,  on 
the  disc  of  the  sun.  Missouri  had  visions  too, 
and  occupied  New  Mexico  in  fact,  having 
traded  thither  for  several  years.  The  Army  of 
the  West  was  but  a  more  martial  Santa  Fe 
caravan.  From  Missouri  and  the  West,  and 
from  around  the  Horn,  Oregon,  California,  and 
New  Mexico  were  added.  The  China  trade,  the 
East  India  trade  and  trade  to  the  country  of 
the  Western  Indians  had  added  a  good  deal 
since  1789. 


160  EAST  BY  WEST 

CALIFORNIA  AND  THE  MERCHANT  MARINE 

California,  whether  consciously  or  not  to 
1846,  had  been  the  chief  objective.  Here  was 
a  New  Atlantis,  regarded  as  of  value  if  for 
nothing  else  than  its  lying  on  the  Pacific  near 
Oregon,  and  being  a  good  place  to  make  up 
cargoes  of  hides  and  tallow.  The  Spaniards 
themselves  had  not  considered  the  region  until 
the  Russians  began  to  come  South;  and  when 
they  relinquished  the  country,  the  Spaniards 
had  not  long  given  up  their  belief  in  a  Northern 
Mystery  —  that  there  was  a  strait  from  the 
strait  of  the  Venetian  Juan  de  Fuca  to  New 
Mexico  at  the  Gulf  of  California.  Presidio, 
pueblo,  mission,  rancho,  and  other  life  in  Cali- 
fornia was  rather  sleepy  even  in  1846,  and  lit- 
tle different  in  January  1848.  But  in  Febru- 
ary 1848  there  was  an  unmistakable  shock,  and 
everything  was  confused.  Somebody  found 
gold  in  nuggets  at  Captain  Sutter's  Columa 
sawmill.  Much  gold  set  all  prices  very  high  in 
the  neighborhood.  In  August  flour  at  Captain 
Sutter's  was  worth  thirty-six  dollars  a  barrel 
and  would  soon  be  worth  fifty  dollars.  The 
people  were  abandoning  their  wheat  fields  to 
the  cattle;  and  it  was  thought  that  unless 
wheat  could  be  conveyed  promptly  from  Chile 
and  Oregon,  there  would  be  hard  times.  Such 
conditions  gave  energy  to  the  Boston  and  other 


EAST  BY  WEST  161 

Northeast  American  merchant  marine.  The 
gold  of  Columa  and  thereabouts  pulled  the 
East  West  by  faster  ships  and  greatly  speeded 
on  the  traffic  overland,  for  steam  was  now  in 
the  air.  So  much  so,  that  for  some  years  yet 
freight  to  California  would  find  its  best  road 
by  what  was  still  the  longest  voyage  in  the 
world,  although  the  Maury  Sailing  Directions, 
wind  and  current  charts,  were  shortening  the 
voyage  by  thirty  days  precisely  at  this  time. 
The  new  California  trade  stimulated  every  ship 
yard  on  the  opposite  coast,  of  the  requisite  skill 
and  capital,  in  the  building  of  clipper  ships  for 
that  trade.  New  York  was  perhaps  the  cen- 
ter of  the  industry,  Salem  having  lapsed  to 
Boston,  and  Boston  to  New  York.  The  clip- 
per builders,  it  is  said,  took  the  bonito,  fish  of 
the  South  Atlantic,  for  their  model.  The  ship 
that  they  turned  out,  "the  noblest  work  that 
has  ever  come  from  the  hand  of  man,"  wrote 
Commodore  Maury,  "  was  sent  through  the 
oceans,  guided  by  the  light  of  science,  to  con- 
tend with  the  elements,  to  outstrip  steam,  and 
astonish  the  world."  A  very  famous  race  of 
four  clippers  was  run  towards  the  end  of  1852, 
over  the  New  York-California  course.  Four 
new  clipper  ships  put  to  sea  from  New  York, 
Oct.  12,  Oct.  29,  Nov.  1,  Nov.  14  — the  WUd 
Pigeon,  the  John  Gilpin,  the  Flyimg  Fish,  and 
the  Trade  Wind.     The  Flying  Fish  won.     She 


162  EAST  BY  WEST 

made  the  passage  in  92  days  4  hours  from  port 
to  anchor  at  San  Francisco;  the  Gilpin  in  93 
days  from  port  to  pilot;  the  Wild  Pigeon's  log 
showed  118;  the  Trade  Wind,  having  taken  fire 
and  burned  for  eight  hours  on  the  way,  con- 
sumed 102  days.  Navigators,  with  gold  bul- 
lion at  the  dropping  of  their  anchors,  and  with 
charts  of  the  winds  and  the  currents  of  the  sea 
in  their  cabins,  could  do  well  as  steam  was  com- 
ing in.  It  is  astounding  that  the  American 
merchant  marine  began  to  fall  off  almost  im- 
mediately after  —  1855  seems  to  have  been  the 
greatest  tonnage  year,  and  that  due  to  the 
Black  Sea  war  somewhat. 

THE  UNION  PACIFIC 

The  complications  of  steam  were  numerous. 
Money  gained  in  the  East  India  trade,  at  Phil- 
adelphia, at  Boston,  at  New  York,  had  turned 
to  manufactories  and  steam  railroads.  Ear- 
lier, as  an  instance,  Boston's  ice  trade  to  Cal- 
cutta, in  connection  Avith  the  importation  of 
India  cottons,  (paid  for  in  Spanish  dollars), 
had  been  profitable ;  now  American  cottons  were 
cheaper  and  better.  At  the  same  it  appeared 
that  the  British  were  able  to  build  iron  steam- 
ships more  advantageously  than  the  Americans. 
The  Americans  were  very  much  interested  in 
steam  railroads.  Their  country  was  vast. 
The  application   of  steam  in  this  way  was  a 


EAST  BY  WEST  163 

logical  accompaniment,  a  function  almost,  of 
the  movement  of  their  center  of  population. 
Testifj'ing  before  a  committee  of  Congress, 
regarding  the  causes  of  reduction  of  American 
tonnage,  Admiral  Porter  said: 

"  I  think  that  I  could  have  carried  on  the 
business  at  one  third  the  amount  it  cost  to 
carry  it  on." 

—  You  mean  to  say  distinctly  that  the 
American  steamship  lines  before  the  war  were 
badly  managed? 

"  I  think  they  were." 

—  And  then  also  the  subsidy  to  the  Collins 
line  was  withdrawn? 

"  Yes." 

—  You  also  remember  the  man  who  was  most 
prominent  in  the  withdrawing  of  that  subsidy? 

"  I  do  not." 

—  Commodore  Vanderbilt  did  more  to  break 
up  the  American  line  to  Europe  than  any  other 
man. 

If  that  was  so,  we  cannot  now  ascertain  the 
reason  why  exactly ;  it  is  too  short  a  time  since 
this  kind  of  transportation  war  began.  Com- 
modore Vanderbilt  went  the  most  effectual  way 
to  any  point.  California  coming  into  his  pur- 
view, he  hit  upon  the  Nicaragua  route,  and  sup- 
plied it  for  a  while  with  steam  ships  on  both 
oceans,  taking  a  profit  as  the  Panama  railroad 
was  constructing  and  the  Pacific  Mail  getting 


164  EAST  BY  WEST 

started.  He  may  have  been  impatient  at  the 
bulking  of  North  America  between  the  Hud- 
son and  the  Columbia, —  between  Hell  Gate  and 
the  Golden  Gate, —  but  so  far  as  appears,  he 
bothered  little  with  dreams  of  a  line  of  railroad 
across  the  thickness  of  the  Continent.  The 
idea  bothered  other  people.  It  was  repugnant 
to  the  age  in  America  to  consider  that  freight 
could  not  go  unbroken  from  one  side  of  the 
country  to  the  other,  except  by  shipping  and  a 
voyage  of  fifteen  thousand  miles.  The  swing 
around  the  Horn  had  become  burdensome,  and 
the  mixed  communication  by  Central  America 
was  only  tolerable.  The  United  States  were 
loosely  hung ;  it  was  thought  that  a  line  of  rail- 
road from  coast  to  coast  would  consolidate  the 
United  States.  British  iron  steamships  were 
about  to  affect  the  American  carrying  trade. 
There  were  many  incentives  to  a  better  com- 
munication, across  continent,  with  Oregon  and 
California.  Chicago  and  the  Lake  country 
understood  something  of  what  was  to  be  their 
future.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  Hut- 
rim  Hutrim,  seer  of  the  Alleghanies,  had  men- 
tioned the  coming  empire  of  our  Middle  West : 
there  was  prophecy  now,  sixty  years  after,  that 
Toledo,  on  Lake  Erie  would  be  the  industrial 
center  of  North  America.  Asa  \^^^itncy,  who 
was  to  end  his  days  in  the  circumscribed  tasks 
of  a  butter  and  milk  farm,  began  to  occupy 


EAST  BY  WEST  165 

himself  after  the  Oregon  treaty  with  the  large 
possibilities  of  a  railway  from  Lake  Michigan 
to  the  Pacific.  In  his  early  memorials  to  Con- 
gress on  the  subject  (his  campaigns  opening 
with  the  Mexican  War)  Mr.  Whitney  touched 
upon  how  his  imaginations  were  first  fired. 
Being  engaged  in  business  at  New  York,  he  was 
in  China  in  1842  and  for  a  year  or  two  there- 
after. He  looked  at  the  vast  commerce  of  all 
India,  of  all  Asia,  and  he  was  convinced  that  his 
country  was  not  getting  its  share.  His  pro- 
posal to  Congress  was  for  a  grant  of  public 
land  towards  the  construction  of  a  railway  that 
would  enable  the  delivery  in  thirty  days  of  a 
cargo  of  teas  to  any  Atlantic  City.  And 
besides,  added  the  memorialist,  "  without  this 
road  Oregon  must  become  a  separate  nation,  or 
belong  to  some  of  the  powers  of  Europe." 
There  were  at  the  time  several  schools  of  opin- 
ion in  the  country,  regarding  the  structure  of 
the  Union,  the  powers  of  the  general  govern- 
ment, the  sovereignty  of  the  States.  The  old 
Cumberland  freight  road  to  the  West  had  been 
abandoned  by  the  general  government  —  which 
had  also  abandoned  its  central  bank.  Mr. 
Whitney's  proposal,  carefully  examined  by 
Congress  from  time  to  time,  involved  the  bal- 
ance of  power.  Congress  being  interested  in 
Japan  and  sending  out  Commodore  Perry  to 
those  islands,  at  the  same  time  authorized  sur- 


166  EAST  BY  WEST 

veys  for  a  steam  road  to  the  Pacific  by  the  best 
of  five  routes  over  five  parallels  of  latitude 
from  the  49th  to  the  32nd:  The  Northern 
Route,  the  Overland  Route  or  Mormon  Trail, 
the  Buffalo  Trail,  by  the  35th  parallel,  and  the 
Southern  Route.  These  different  lines  of 
approach  were  advocated,  reading  from  North 
to  South,  by  a  New  York-Boston-Philadelphia- 
Baltimore  party ;  by  a  St.  Louis  party ;  by  a 
Memphis  party ;  by  a  Charleston  party ;  by  a 
Texas  party.  The  proposal  was  in  politics  at 
a  very  political  juncture.  There  could  be  no 
agreement,  symptom  of  the  bloody  disagree- 
ment soon  to  show  itself.  During  that  bloody 
disagreement  the  road  got  its  charter  —  the 
railroad  called  Union  Pacific  was  chartered  by 
a  middle  route  from  Omaha  to  Sacramento. 
The  road  was  built  rapidly,  blazing  through 
the  frontier,  doing  away  Mnth  it,  indeed  keep- 
ing straight  on  across  Siberia  in  Asia.  Nu- 
merous Mongolians  were  employed  in  its  con- 
struction. The  last  spike,  effecting  the  union 
between  the  western  and  eastern  ends  of  the 
line,  seems  to  have  been  driven  in  May  1869. 
A  California  poet,  writing  of  the  eastern  and 
western  engines  met  at  the  union  of  the  lines, 
made  the  western  engine  expostulate  with  the 
over-puffing  eastern : 

"  Why,   I  bring  the  East  to  you. 
All  the  Orient,  all  Cathay 


EAST  BY  WEST  167 

Find  through  me  the  shortest  way  — 
Really,  if  one  must  be  rude, 
Length,  my   friend,   ain't  longitude." 

At  the  St.  Louis  Pacific  Railroad  Convention 
of  1849,  Mr.  Benton  had  said  that  "  such  a 
road  should  be  adorned  with  a  colossal  statue 
of  Columbus,  hewn  from  the  granite  mass  of  a 
peak  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  point  to  the 
Western  horizon  —  " 

"  There  is  the  East !     There  is  India !  " 

THE  TWINS  — SUEZ  CANAL  AND  U.  P.  R.  R. 

From  definite  inception  to  completion  it  had 
taken  a  quarter  century  to  build  this  road. 
It  was  a  modern  work.  The  methods  found 
expedient  in  its  making  and  solidifying  have 
been  questioned ;  *  settled  principles  of  law  will 
be  found  inadequate  in  this  case  to  attain  the 
ends  of  abstract  justice,  and  the  term  justice 
itself  to  have  been  offered  a  new  and  strange 
definition  in  response  to  the  demands  of  a  dan- 
gerous industrial  growth.'  Was  ever  any- 
thing substantial  accomplished  simply  and 
straightforwardly.''  Defoe,  best  of  writers  on 
the  old  commerce,  remarks,  "  I  make  no  doubt 
but  that  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said 
of  our  vice  propagating  our  commerce,  yet  our 
trade  might  be  supported,  our  tradesmen  kept 
employed,    and    their    shops    still    be    opened, 


168  EAST  BY  WEST 

though  a  time  of  reformation  were  to  come, 
which  I  doubt  is  but  too  far  off."  At  any  rate, 
the  Union  Pacific  railway  was  a  Consolidator, 
a  very  efficacious  engine,  like  Defoe's  of  that 
name.  It  has  not  been  easy  to  construct  any 
United  States.  The  cost  has  always  been  high. 
In  the  matter  of  its  subsidy  bonds,  the  Supreme 
Court  held  that  the  Union  Pacific  was  estopped 
to  deny  that  at  the  time  the  last  bonds  were 
delivered,  November  6,  1869,  the  road  was  com- 
pleted. Less  than  a  fortnight  later,  another 
Consolidator  was  finished,  the  job  turned  over 
that  was  to  work  immediate  and  serious  eco- 
nomic changes  in  many  parts  of  the  world  — 
Nov.  17,  1869,  the  Suez  Canal  was  connected  up. 
This  enterprise  also  had  been  of  slow  growth. 
The  Victorian  era  was  one  of  steam,  but  the 
application  was  halting  even  among  the  Brit- 
ish for  a  while.  They  subsidized  the  Cunard 
and  P.  and  O.  steamships.  They  could  not  be 
made  to  see  at  once  where  the  advantage  lay 
in  opening  a  more  direct  steam  road  to  the 
East.  In  1829,  Lieutenant  Waghorn  formally 
proposed  a  regular  communication  with  India 
by  the  Red  Sea.  He  took  despatches  out  to 
Bombay  by  that  old  path,  and  returned  within 
three  months,  the  time  consumed  by  the  fastest 
vessels  on  the  outward  voyage  alone.  He  was 
the  originator  of  the  nineteenth  century  Over- 
land   Route    to    India:    to    Alexandria,    across 


EAST  BY  WEST  169 

desert  to  Suez,  from  Suez  to  Bombay  —  time 
less  than  fifty  days.  The  French  raised  a 
monument  at  Suez  to  Lieutenant  Waghorn; 
otherwise  his  reward  was  slight.  M.  de  Les- 
seps  was  good  enough  to  call  Colonel  Rawdon 
Chesney  the  father  of  the  Suez  Canal.  Colonel 
Chesney,  who  barely  missed  being  a  South  Car- 
olinian, went  to  Constantinople  in  ]829  to  help 
the  Turk.  He  became  interested  in  the  Near 
East  and  made  an  inspection  of  Egypt  and 
Syria.  In  Egypt,  in  1830,  he  proved  that  the 
canalization  of  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  was  a  per- 
fectly feasible  undertaking,  in  spite  of  the 
adverse  conclusions  of  Napoleon's  engineers. 
It  was  on  the  strength  of  Colonel  Chesney's 
report  that  M.  de  Lesseps,  on  his  own  frank 
admission,  was  led  to  his  great  achievement. 
Colonel  Chesney  next,  in  1831,  explored  the 
Valley  of  the  Euphrates.  He  carried  through, 
under  many  difficulties,  a  close  examination  of 
the  lower  Euphrates,  and  after  a  tour  through 
Persia  to  Trebizond,  returned  to  England  by 
Aleppo.  In  1835,  he  undertook  for  his  govern- 
ment the  transportation  of  two  steamers  from 
the  Bay  of  Antioch  to  Birejik,  above  Thapsa- 
cus  on  the  upper  Euphrates ;  and  one  of  these 
boats  he  took  quite  down  to  Bassora  and  the 
Persian  Gulf.  No  definite  action  followed  on 
the  part  of  the  British  government.  Twenty 
years  later,  that  government  permitted  another 


170  EAST  BY  WEST 

expedition,  in  which  Colonel  Chesney  figured 
largely,  to  determine  the  best  route  for  a 
Euphrates  Valley  railway.  The  line  was  sur- 
veyed and  the  necessary  concessions  were 
obtained  from  Constantinople,  but  Lord  Pal- 
merston  would  not  encourage  a  scheme  that 
was  regarded  with  dislike  by  the  Emperor  of 
the  French.  Again  in  1862,  at  the  age  of  sev- 
enty-three. Colonel  Chesney  went  out  to  Con- 
stantinople and  got  fresh  concessions  for  his 
railway,  but  was  balked  again  by  his  govern- 
ment. In  1869,  he  was  at  Paris,  and  received 
the  compliments  of  de  Lesseps,  who  was  then 
giving  final  realization  to  General  Chesney's 
Suez  ideas. 

A  FEW  EFFECTS  OF  THE  SUEZ  CANAL 

The  construction  of  the  Suez  Canal  helped 
to  revolutionize  one  of  the  greatest  departments 
of  the  world's  commerce  and  business,  destroy- 
ing a  vast  amount  of  what  had  previously  been 
wealth,  and  altering  the  employment  of  millions 
of  capital  and  thousands  of  men.  Tonnage 
was  destroyed.  Ships  fitted  to  go  around  the 
Cape  could  not  go  through  the  Canal.  At  the 
same  time,  mechanical  improvements  were 
greatly  changing  the  working  of  ships,  by 
which  crews  were  diminished.  And  with  tele- 
graphic communication  between  the  markets 
of  the  world,  there  was  no  longer  need  for  the 


EAST  BY  WEST  171 

laying  up  of  great  supplies.  The  voyage  to 
India  consuming  thirty  days  or  less,  and  mer- 
chant being  able  to  communicate  at  once  with 
merchant,  the  elaborate  India  warehouse  and 
distribution  system  of  Great  Britain  was  much 
affected,  with  all  the  labor  and  capital  incident 
to  that  system.  Railways  everywhere  in  con- 
nection with  steamships  were  giving  the  world  a 
new  face  as  a  market.  With  the  organization 
of  the  railway,  distribution,  that  had  been  so 
much  through  Great  Britain  to  the  Continent 
of  Europe,  was  made  direct  to  the  Continent. 
The  Suez  Canal  and  the  railways  gave  Central 
Europe  many  opportunities,  some  of  them 
apparently  along  lines  blocked  out  by  Holbein. 
Old  continental  Hansa  towns  sent  their  ships 
not  only  into  the  Mediterranean,  but  to  all  the 
world.  Hamburg  and  Bremen,  through  Prince 
Bismarck,  got  subsidies  for  German  ships  to 
deliver  German  goods  to  foreign  customers. 
The  new  Imperial  German  Government  rail- 
ways encouraged  shipping  by  hauling  shipyard 
materials  at  a  nominal  figure.  British  mer- 
chants began  to  observe  that  these  policies  were 
throwing  more  and  more  of  the  Far  Eastern 
carrying  trade  into  German  ships,  at  the 
expense  of  London  and  Hull  and  Plymouth  and 
Liverpool.  The  world  was  round  and  fixedly 
looked  upon.  East  as  West,  as  an  oyster. 
Japan  had  come  West,  and  American  steam- 


m  EAST  BY  WEST 

ships  in  the  Pacific  felt  soon  the  keen  competi- 
tion of  the  Japanese  Toyo  Yusen  Kaisha  — 
from  California  by  the  Sandwich  Islands  to 
Japan  and  Hong  Kong  —  and  of  the  Japanese 
Nippon  Yusen  Kaisha  from  the  Strait  of  the 
Venetian  Juan  de  Fuca  to  Japan  direct.  One 
thing  at  least  remained  to  do:  the  cutting  of  a 
ship  canal  between  the  Americas,  so  as  to  save 
the  steamship  companies  of  the  world  a  consid- 
erable expense,  and  change  absolutely  the  traf- 
fic across  the  American  Isthmus  that  had  grown 
up  since  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY 

While  this  last  work  was  forwarding,  skilful 
negotiations  were  a-foot  for  the  railway  con- 
trol (to  say  no  more)  of  the  Euphrates  Valley, 
territory  of  the  old  Babylon.  About  the  year 
1888,  Doctor  Von  Siemens,  head  of  the 
Deutsche  Bank,  conceived  the  idea  of  restoring 
to  civilization  the  great  wastes  of  Asia  Minor 
and  INIcsopotamia ;  he  thought  railways  would 
be  the  surest  means.  At  that  time  there  were 
many  restrictions  upon  travel  in  Asia  Minor, 
Armenians,  for  example,  being  quite  restrained 
from  moving  from  one  place  to  another. 
These  conditions  affected  the  price  of  commod- 
ities. Just  as  in  America,  for  some  years  after 
the  Revolution,  wagon  freights  from  Philadel- 
phia to  the  Ohio  River  were  almost  prohibitive. 


EAST  BY  WEST  173 

so  at  Asia  Minor  seaports  grain  could  be  deliv- 
ered from  the  United  States  at  a  less  cost  than 
was  chargeable  to  bring  grain  down  from  the 
interior.  Doctor  Von  Siemens  and  his  group 
secured  concessions  from  the  government  at 
Constantinople  for  a  railway  from  Ismid  to 
Konia,  that  is  from  Nicomedia  to  Iconiuum  —  a 
Rum  railroad.  Shortly  afterwards  an  English 
and  Austrian  group  was  dispossessed  by  the 
Porte  of  its  railway  from  Haidar,  opposite 
Constantinople,  to  Ismid.  The  Anatolian  or 
Deutsche  Bank  railroad  was  carried  through  to 
Konia  within  seven  or  eight  years  from  its  in- 
auguration. Then  the  German  Emperor  vis- 
ited Constantinople  and  was  granted  a  further 
railway  concession  from  Konia  to  the  Persian 
Gulf: — the  whole  enterprise  to  be  known  as  the 
Imperial  Ottoman  Bagdad  Railway  Company. 
This  short  cut  to  India,  from  the  Bosphorus  to 
the  Persian  Gulf,  was  manifestly  a  large  idea, 
not  of  necessity  aiming  at  anything  but  the 
commercial  development  of  the  country,  a  fine 
country  long  badly  administered.  A  road  to 
pass  from  the  Bosphorus,  through  Nicomedia 
and  Konia,  connecting  with  Damascus  and 
Aleppo,  to  be  pushed  on  through  Northern 
Mesopotamia  across  the  Euphrates  and  along 
the  valley  of  the  Tigris  —  to  bring  the  ancient 
cities  of  Nineveh,  Babylon,  and  Nippur  within 
reach  of  the  railway  traveler,  and  to  end  at 


174  EAST  BY  WEST 

Bassora  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  such  a  road  of 
wonders  could  not  fail  to  be,  in  many  ways,  of 
international  interest.  The  holders  of  the 
concession  were  to  have  the  advantage  of  cut- 
ting timber  in  government  forests,  of  making 
harbors,  quays,  and  warehouses  at  Bagdad, 
Bassora,  Scanderoon,  and  other  places,  and  of 
utilizing  water  powers  for  electric  traction. 
The  concession  gave  a  number  of  preferential 
rights  to  mines  near  the  road  way,  and  permis- 
sion to  construct  so  many  branch  lines  as 
almost  to  constitute  a  monopoly  of  railway 
traffic  through  a  wide  sweep  of  the  Empire  from 
Constantinople  to  Bagdad.  Indeed,  the  most 
valuable  privileges  granted  were  for  the  build- 
ing of  branch  lines  to  places  of  considerable 
population,  when  it  was  believed  a  good  paying 
traffic  could  at  once  be  had.  For  a  long  time 
the  Turk  in  control  of  the  country  had  given 
almost  no  thought  to  internal  improvements. 
Here  was  a  new  era  beginning.  But  the  polit- 
ical difficulties  in  the  circumstances  were  not 
slight.  The  Germans  invited  England  and 
France  to  participate  in  the  road.  They 
needed  money,  their  engineers  reporting  the 
Taurus  Mountains  expensive.  Nor  did  they 
disregard  the  problems  of  conflicting  interests. 
Naturally,  the  Germans  desired  their  own  com- 
mercial advantage,  and  the  chief  management 
of  the  railroad  they  had  projected.     England 


EAST  BY  WEST  175 

was  at  first  willing  to  participate,  and  then 
for  some  reason  unwilling.  Financiers  there 
regretted  in  1903  that  public  opinion  was 
against  participation.  France  also  demurred 
at  official  recommendation. 

THE  GREAT  TRANSPORTATION  WAR 

Arthur  von  Gwinner,  reorganizer  of  the 
Northern  Pacific,  succeeded  Doctor  von  Sie- 
mens in  1901,  as  head  of  the  Deutsche  Bank. 
In  1903,  he  made  a  further  contract  with  the 
Ottoman  Minister  of  Public  Works  regarding 
the  Bagdad  Railway : —  if  Constantinople  was 
to  guarantee  the  road  anything,  there  must  be  a 
reorganization  of  the  Ottoman  Public  Debt, 
Turkey's  bonds  being  held  largely  by  foreign- 
ers since  the  collapse  in  1875  of  the  Porte's 
finances.  Arthur  von  Gwinner,  writing  for  a 
British  Review  in  1909,  made  a  good  argument 
for  the  German  program  in  Asia  Minor,  quot- 
ing Faust  on  swamp-draining,  and  stating  the 
case  for  the  Bagdad  Railway  excellently  well. 
Speaking  of  the  debates  in  Parliament  of  1903, 
he  said  that  the  opponents  of  British  partici- 
pation in  the  Bagdad  Railway  —  the  political 
opposition,  the  Russian  party,  "  and  a  few 
private  interests  who  had  as  legitimate  a 
grudge  against  the  railway's  competition  to 
their  trade  as  Mr.  Weller,  senior,  had  against 
railways      in      general "  —  all     these     getting 


176  EAST  BY  WEST 

together,  managed  so  to  "  misrepresent  "  the 
whole  affair  as  to  lead  public  opinion  astray: 
—  the  overruled  "  Lord  Lansdown  would  have 
preferred  no  doubt  to  let  the  Suez  Canal  remain 
the  only  highway  to  India,  but  as  he  discerned 
the  short  cut  which  the  Bagdad  Railway  rep- 
resents would  be  built  anyhow,  though  perhaps 
slower,  he  decided  it  was  good  policy  for  Great 
Britain  to  have  a  hand  and  a  say  in  that 
momentous  undertaking.  No  doubt  he  likewise 
saw  that  railway  connection  is  possible  from  the 
Bagdad  Railway  by  Ispahan  and  the  road  by 
which  Alexander  led  his  army  to  Kandahar  and 
India,  and  perhaps  he  even  considered  that  one 
of  Linde's  ice  machines  in  every  car,  and  a  little 
liquid  air,  might  make  a  railway  journey  quite 
comfortable  even  in  those  hottest  of  regions." 
With  regard  to  the  railway  itself,  Director  von 
Gwinner  declared  that  the  Turks,  old  and 
young,  were  justly  proud  of  the  road,  which 
was  selling  the  peasants  agricultural  machin- 
ery, and  without  any  profit,  was  subventioning 
schools,  planting  trees  and  making  experiments 
and  demonstrations  in  agriculture,  and  advanc- 
ing without  interest  large  amounts  of  grain  in 
drought  years.  The  road  was  making,  of  mis- 
cellaneous bandits,  good  stationmasters  and 
others,  "  parties  as  respectable  as  the  late  Mr. 
Micawber  after  his  conversion  to  thrift." 

In   June   1914,   the   Bagdad  Railway   Com- 


EAST  BY  WEST  177 

pany,  officially  Ottoman,  was  managed  by  an 
Administrative  Council  of  twenty-seven  — 
eight  Frenchmen,  four  Turks,  two  Swiss,  one 
Austrian,  one  Italian,  and  eleven  Germans.  In 
June  1914,  it  was  charged  that  the  Italian, 
Austrian,  and  Swiss  representation  in  the  Coun- 
cil was  merely  German ;  that  the  company  with 
a  great  flourish  had  proclaimed  itself  Interna- 
tional and  open  to  everybody;  but  that  never- 
theless, since  the  end  of  1899,  "  there  have 
been  a  few  little  facts  to  prove  the  unalterable 
decision  of  the  Germans  to  remain  absolute 
masters  of  the  affair." 

That  was  an  affirmation  of  June  1914. 
What  is  this  Bedlam  since.''  God  preserve  us  in 
the  conclusions  of  our  essays. 


PERIOD 


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